by Mary Pedley | Jan 26, 2026 | Collections, Maps, Today in history
On this day in history, in 1837, Michigan was admitted as the 26th state. A map of Michigan is easily at hand for most people, whether it is on the phone in their pocket or demonstrated by simply holding up their hand! It wasn’t always that simple. The shape of the...
by Cheney Schopieray | Oct 31, 2025 | Collections, Holidays, Manuscripts, Today in history
A nod of the head to Robert Burns and Clara L. Walmer from the Clements Library this Halloween 2025. Over 150 years ago, in the early 1870s, the annual celebration of Halloween in the United States was fading, according to one journalist. In The True Democrat of York,...
by Chris Ridgway | Apr 4, 2024 | Conservation, Events, Featured, Graphics, Today in history
It’s been said that witnessing an event born of the natural world makes poets of scientists and scientists of poets. Americans will experience a total solar eclipse on Monday, April 8, 2024. Perhaps this will be your first? Maybe you are already an eclipse hunter and...
by Clements Library | Apr 9, 2019 | Clements Library Associates, Manuscripts, Today in history
Guest post by volunteer Richard Marsh, Clements Library Associates Board of Governors Thanks to the contributions of Dr. Duane Norman Diedrich (1935-2018), the Clements Library holds selected original documents from Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), the great Prime...
by Jayne Ptolemy | Nov 20, 2018 | Featured, Graphics, Manuscripts, Today in history
Nestled in the Clements Library’s Oliver Hazard Perry Papers are remarkable documents detailing the commodore’s naval career, with some 200 pieces highlighting his service in the War of 1812. In September of 1813 he famously won the Battle of Lake Erie, a...
by Clements Library | Mar 18, 2016 | Graphics, Manuscripts, Today in history
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...
by Clements Library | Jun 21, 2015 | Graphics, Holidays, Manuscripts, Today in history
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantIn 1880 William Brunton, a Unitarian minister from Boston, began composing a special diary that recorded the everyday activities of his young son, Herbert, whom he affectionately called Bertie. “It is a work...
by Clements Library | May 10, 2015 | Books, Holidays, Manuscripts, Today in history
Post by Jayne Ptolemy, Manuscripts Curatorial AssistantOn May 24, 1873, Kate Edgerly finally found the time to return her sister’s letter. “You want to know how I get along with four children,” she wrote, with more than a little exasperation,...
by Clements Library | Feb 14, 2015 | Holidays, Manuscripts, Today in history
According to Ruth Webb Lee’s A History of Valentines (1952), the creation and distribution of valentines in America began sometime in the mid-18th century. Prior to the advent of mass-produced, printed notes and cards around 100 years later, women and men made...
