Morsels of History

by | 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...

Cramped, Crabbed, and Micro-Calligraphic

by | 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...

One is the Loneliest Number

by | 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...

On Pins and Needles

by | 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....

Collection Encounters: Confessions of a Curator

by | May 27, 2024 | Publications

Jayne Ptolemy Associate Curator of Manuscripts I have a confession. I hated early American history for much of my pre-adult life. The Jamestown colony, Federalists, the Missouri Compromise, robber barons. I hated all of it. It just felt so stuffy, so distant, and so...

Supreme Nonsense: The Ancient Band of the Anderson

by | May 27, 2024 | Publications

Jakob Dopp Graphics Division Cataloger Whether or not people can truly interact with spirits of the deceased has long been a subject of controversy and fascination. Skeptics of 19th-century spiritualism often leveled accusations of financially-motivated fraud against...

Getting Away With It

by | May 27, 2024 | Publications

Clayton Lewis Curator of Graphic Materials, retired Rowland Stephenson (1782– 1856), Member of Parliament for Leominster, was descended from generations of wealth and accomplishment and was well known to the social elite as a respected partner of the Lombard Street...

A Quartet of Cons from the Collections

by | May 27, 2024 | Publications

Cheney J. Schopieray Curator of Manuscripts David Wyrick’s 1860 map of “Ancient Works Near Newark, Licking County O.” clearly shows the mind for organization and detail required in archeaological work by including measurements, details of topography, roads, and...