by Clements Library | Jul 12, 2023 | Publications
The papers of British General Thomas Gage have been the most queried, requested, researched, and otherwise utilized materials at the William L. Clements Library—from their arrival at the Library in 1937 to the present day. A National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)...
by Clements Library | Jul 12, 2023 | Publications
To pick up a needle and thread requires a great deal of minding. Mind the needle— it’s sharp. Mind the fabric— it shifts. Mind the thread—it tangles. Oh reader, does it tangle. If you have not held that delightfully simple tool in your hands, you may be surprised at...
by Kayla Robinson | Jul 12, 2023 | Publications
Curators and librarians try hard to be as neutral as possible, to approach historical materials as something we’re dedicated to describing, preparing for use, and stewarding. But occasionally, something happens that just makes you plain mad. The story that always gets...
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
Staff News Lilian Varner has joined the Development and Communications Department as the new Marketing Coordinator. She will oversee social media, update the website, design printed materials, and assist in public outreach and events. Isaac Burgdorf, an incoming...
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
Lately, I’ve been participating in the Clements crowdsourcing program “Picturing Michigan’s Past,” helping to categorize real photo postcards from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography. Through these images I see how humans were affecting the world...
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
Artists have long striven to replicate visual perception and wrestled with the limits of various image production methods. One of the great historical challenges has been that paintings and photographs are static, while our actual perceptions unfold in time and space....
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
I have always envied people who seem to have a secure sense of direction. Myself, I am easily turned around and once got so lost that I had to casually ask someone the way to “downtown” because I didn’t even know which city I was closest to anymore. In an era before...
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
When we think of urbanization in North America, our thoughts generally turn to the cities founded by European colonists in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. We often forget that European adventurers who preceded the colonial settlers encountered the cities of...
by Kayla Robinson | Jun 26, 2023 | Publications
While sources describing cities of the past can be found throughout the library collections, another way to view urban history is by looking at predictions of the future. In his self-published Poetical Drifts of Thought, or, Problems of Progress (Detroit, 1884), Lyman...
