“This is holy eve,” Richard Coulter wrote in his journal on October 31st, 1847. He was serving in the American Army that Halloween due to the Mexican War, and he noted the differences between how the day was observed in Mexico and back home in Greensburg,...
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Reading Room SupervisorIn honor of the upcoming celebration of World Beard Day on Saturday, September 7, Clements Library offers up this small sampling of the luxuriant beards found in our extensive Graphics Division. For example, amidst the...
January 18 and 22 mark the bicentennial of a pair of battles of the War of 1812 that deeply affected the American population of Ohio, Kentucky, and the Michigan Territory. The battles were fought in Frenchtown or River Raisin (today Monroe, Michigan), and they were a...
Post by Brian Dunnigan, Associate Director and Curator of MapsFor many years now, two oil paintings have looked down on the supervisor’s desk in the Clements Library reading room. They depict two phases of a battle at sea between a pair of warships, one British...
Post by Brian Dunnigan, Associate Director and Curator of MapsMany Americans remember the War of 1812 as a naval conflict in which, as Canadian historian C.P. Stacey put it, “the pride of the Mistress of the Seas was humbled by what an imprudent Englishman had...
In anticipation of this fall’s exhibit, the University of Michigan Museum of Art’s magazine presents Benjamin West’s painting, The Death of General Wolfe, as both a featured item and cover image. The painting, which generally hangs in the Clements...
Guest post by Esti Brennan, Social Media InternOn August 19th, 1871, Orville Wright was born. The contributions that he and his brother Wilbur made to American history and technology require little explanation–the image of their fragile-winged plane is imprinted...
Post by Brian L. Dunnigan, Associate Director and Curator of MapsEarly in the morning of July 17, 1812, the residents of Mackinac Island awoke to pounding on their doors. A group of fellow citizens, led by local militia captain Michael Dousman, told everyone that war...
Guest post by Esti Brennan, Social Media Intern[Mathew Brady, autographed ‘Carte de Visite’ portrait of General George B. McClellan, circa 1862. From the Clements Library collection.]Photographs of the Civil War, though a poignant and engaging...
