With Halloween right around the corner, here at the Clements Library our thoughts have turned to all things spooky that send shivers up your spine. While perhaps not as sinister as ghouls and goblins, the bare human skeleton has a disconcerting effect all its own that...
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantIn 1880 William Brunton, a Unitarian minister from Boston, began composing a special diary that recorded the everyday activities of his young son, Herbert, whom he affectionately called Bertie. “It is a work...
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantOn May 24, 1873, Kate Edgerly finally found the time to return her sister’s letter. “You want to know how I get along with four children,” she wrote, with more than a little exasperation,...
Rare 151st plate from Audubon’s Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. Detail of Plate CXXIX.Post by Aprille Phule, Curator of Cryptozoological Collections and BibliochicaneryThe University of Michigan Library marks its formal beginning with the purchase in 1839 of...
According to Ruth Webb Lee’s A History of Valentines (1952), the creation and distribution of valentines in America began sometime in the mid-18th century. Prior to the advent of mass-produced, printed notes and cards around 100 years later, women and men made...
Archives specialize in documenting change over time, but the holdings at the William L. Clements Library also reveal how some things remain stable through the years, including the excitement surrounding Christmas morning. On December 20th, 1840, Edward H....
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantThe William L. Clements Library sends warm Thanksgiving greetings and offers a glimpse at holidays past via our Manuscripts Division. In November 1857, William H. Ireland, Jr., sent an illustrated, lyrical letter...
Happy Valentine’s Day to our readers! These Valentine’s Day postcards are from our ephemera collection. They are postmarked from 1907-1909 and were sent to Mr. Andrew Swords from several people.”We pledged our hearts my love and I. I in my arms the...
For this year’s festivities, we offer a selection of cat-themed holiday cards from the ephemera collections of the Clements Library. May you have a purr-fect holiday season!”Though a Kitten, quite able I ought to be, To carry a Christmas wish to...
