by Angela Oonk | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Angela Oonk Director of Development I’ve been thinking about the staff discussions around the topic of this Quarto and how excited everyone became when we agreed upon “tiny things” from the collection. There were cries of delight as people mentioned favorite items...
by Clements Library | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Sierra Laddusaw Curator of Maps & Graphics The Matthews-Northrup firm rose to prominence as the publishers and printers of railroad maps, which required a level of detail also demonstrated in their Map of the United States. When prompted to think about “tiny...
by Clements Library | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
By Iman Jamison Manuscripts Division Intern “Ms. Inventory of the Samson Adams estate, August 1792,” in the digital collection, Samson Adams Papers, 1767–1794. The Clements Library houses thousands of records, ephemera, lists, and inventories that reveal the rare...
by Maggie Vanderford | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Maggie Vanderford Librarian for Instruction and Engagement The golden age of microbiology during the 1880s–90s signaled a landmark shift in popular awareness of human relationships to the microscopic world. As French chemist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and German...
by Jakob Dopp | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Jakob Dopp Graphics Division Cataloger From photography’s inception there has been an interest in capturing imagery of the microscopic realm. In fact, microphotography came into being in 1839 after English photographer John Benjamin Dancer (1812–1887) discovered how...
by Emiko Hastings | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Emi Hastings Curator of Books In a quest for the extraordinary, book collectors are often drawn to extremes. This may include the “first,” the rarest, and even the biggest or smallest of books. For the lover of small things, a tiny book has an enduring charm out of...
by Cheney Schopieray | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Cheney Schopieray Curator of Manuscripts Rebecca Dodge Eaton’s handwriting diminished in size from a moonlit base-to-waist height of over 3mm, to her average typical height of ~2mm, to a cramped 0.5–1mm height. Teacher and poet Rebecca Dodge Eaton (1796–1852) sat down...
by Paul Erickson | Mar 18, 2025 | Publications
Paul J. Erickson Randolph G. Adams Director William L. Clements Library “Tiny Things” may seem like an unusual theme for a Clements Library Quarto. Like most of our peer institutions, we often tend to focus on big things: the largest collection of this, the deepest...
by Jayne Ptolemy | Feb 5, 2025 | Publications
Jayne Ptolemy Associate Curator of Manuscripts Bah humbug! A quick perusal of daguerreotypes will yield any number of severe-looking portraits that hide any sense of humor the subjects might have possessed. Above, left: [Older man], by Moses Sutton, daguerreotype....
