The Last Colonial Governors in Revolutionary America
Guest post by Catherine Treesh, Clements Library 2018 Price Fellow Over the course of 1774 and 1775, letters from distressed governors flooded General Thomas Gage’s headquarters in Boston. Colonial officials all across British North America were watching imperial...
Reading a Manuscript, Which Reposes a Thousand Miles Away: Digitized Manuscripts Collections from the William L. Clements Library
The William L. Clements Library is pleased to announce that five of its manuscripts collections are digitized and accessible online. These collections mark the beginning of the Library’s efforts to provide free and open digital access to its collections of...
Recent Acquisition: A U.S. Government Official’s Description of a Mixed-Race Lead Actress on the Baltimore Stage, 1796
Research projects can begin in a variety of different ways. On one end of the spectrum, a query about some aspect of the past may prompt the scholar to seek out and identify relevant primary sources that help answer their question. On the opposite end, a scholar may...
Women’s Voices from the Starry Family Correspondence
As one of the Clements Library’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) interns, I was tasked with conserving and providing descriptions of manuscript collections that feature historically underrepresented perspectives and subject matter. The collections...
The First Published African-American Composer
Portrait courtesy of IMSLP.org The earliest published African-American composer in the United States is Francis “Frank” Johnson (1792-1844), whose international musical career first flourished in Philadelphia, the city of his birth. Johnson lived through the era of...
The Most Beautifully-Bound Newspaper in the Library
Most of the 18th and 19th century American newspapers in the Clements Library collections have bindings that are functional rather than artistic. Many volumes have been rebound in 20th century olive green cloth and either green paper or plain gray boards. The older...
Printing and Painting Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie
Nestled in the Clements Library’s Oliver Hazard Perry Papers are remarkable documents detailing the commodore’s naval career, with some 200 pieces highlighting his service in the War of 1812. In September of 1813 he famously won the Battle of Lake Erie, a...