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...
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,...
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...
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...
Balmy summer weather has finally arrived in Ann Arbor, and the staff at the Clements Library are enjoying the season’s warmth and sunshine. The joys of sipping lemonade in the shade and lounging in hammocks are tempered by the less popular harbingers of...
By Emiko Hastings, Curator of BooksIn honor of Flag Day, we share a variety of U.S. flag-related imagery from across the Clements Library collections. Flag Day, established by President Woodrow Wilson, in 1916, commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United...
Guest post by Kayla Carucci, Book Division student assistant and graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information. With the move from Ellsworth back to campus finally complete, the Clements staff and volunteers grow more excited by the day for the...
The Clements staff are busy packing offices and preparing collections for our move back to campus, an all-encompassing task that makes the days pass far too quickly. We take this opportunity to step back from bubble wrap and boxes to reflect on the magic of the...
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...
