by Jayne Ptolemy | May 11, 2018 | Holidays, Manuscripts
Frequent use hones mothers’ multitasking skills into an art. Holding a child on her hip while cooking, chatting up a toddler while trying to finish some paperwork, or folding the laundry while persuading an independent-minded youngster to put on their shoes, a...
by Clements Library | May 2, 2018 | Featured, Library Work, Manuscripts
Post by Meghan Brody, Clements Library Volunteer University of Michigan History Major, Class of 2019 I received my first introduction to the Clements Library during a class visit in the winter semester 2017. I immediately knew that I wanted to become a volunteer. ...
by Clements Library | Feb 14, 2018 | Holidays, Manuscripts
While serving as a drummer with the 61st Ohio Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, Ohio-native Peter Henry “Hank” Musty wrote many a letter to his friends and family back home. Hank was most often in communication with his parents and his brother...
by Clements Library | Nov 9, 2017 | Manuscripts
Every manuscript collection in the Clements has its own tale of survival and travels from the time of its creation until safely ensconced on the shelves of the Library. One of the most interesting is that of the papers of Thomas Gage (1719-1787), British...
by Clements Library | May 12, 2017 | Holidays, Manuscripts
In the late afternoon of October 22nd, 1831, Maria Bradford gave birth to a “plump & fat” little girl whose “good lungs, made a great noise the minute after she was born.” “As soon as I heard the child cry,” she remembered,...
by Clements Library | Mar 2, 2017 | Books, Graphics, Manuscripts
In early 1862, George Driver was serving on board the Highlander as a supply officer and doing his part for the Union cause, making his father enormously proud. The George Driver Family Papers include Stephen Driver’s letter to his son dated March 2nd, which...
by Clements Library | Feb 14, 2017 | Holidays, Manuscripts
Samuel Latham Mitchill was a man of many interests. He held a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh, studied law, taught chemistry and botany at Columbia University, and served in both state and national legislatures. Even with so much on his mind, his wife,...
by Clements Library | Dec 23, 2016 | Books, Manuscripts
A snowball fight from A Book of Winter Sports: An Attempt to Catch the Spirit of the Keen Joys of the Winter Season (New York, 1912).The arrival of the winter solstice often coincides with the first significant snowfall of the season. As adults we mostly view...
by Clements Library | Oct 31, 2016 | Holidays, Manuscripts
Perhaps no image is more synonymous with Halloween than that of the witch, a woman dressed in black with a pointy hat and a broomstick. But this seemingly innocent costume has roots stretching back to the colonial period when being called a witch was a serious, often...
