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Adopt a Piece of History

Honor a loved one or commemorate a special event with a tribute through our Adopt a Piece of History program. Your gift will be acknowledged via a virtual bookplate. Digital bookplates are flexible and can bear the name of the individual being honored or remembered, as well as the name of the thoughtful donor. Your support strengthens our collections by helping with acquisitions, conservation, digitization and other priorities of the Clements Library.

Virtual Bookplates Gallery

This digital and commemorative program is a wonderful way to convey your personal commitment to the study of history and preservation of past knowledge and voices. Adoptions are an excellent way to commemorate an occasion, celebrate a milestone, or honor a great achievement.

Please explore the available tributes highlighted below!

Do you have something in particular in mind? We are always happy to help identify more historical materials needing support that are meaningful to yourself or a loved one. To discuss your ideas or if you have any other questions, please contact: 

Anne Bennington-Helber, Assistant Director of Development 
[email protected] / 734-649-3370

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Rare views of a Philadelphia-area landmark that supplied Civil War regiments and the Lewis & Clark expedition. Building were demolished in 1963. Contains twelve albumen print photographs.

Schuylkill Arsenal photograph album. ca. 1870s.

$2250 | Graphics

Published by S.M. Stevens, Cincinnati, 1885. Printed by The Strobridge Litho Col, Cincinnati. This colorful display piece shows, through a series of vignettes, the life career of a locomotive fireman killed on the job, and the benefit payments being made to his widow and children by the Brotherhood. This piece was likely used as a membership reward.

Color Lithograph, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen

$2500 | Graphics

An excellent example of a runaway slave broadside, documenting an important aspect of the history of slavery in America.

Mitchell, Henry S. $300 Reward: Ran Away From the Subscriber’s Plantation, Myrtle Grove, Charles Co., Maryland. (Baltimore?): circa 1850.

$2585 | Books

The presence of props and objects like this newspaper were deliberate signals of identity when portrait photography was a serious, formal, undertaking. The Clements is very strong in the area of anti-slavery materials and does have a run of The Emancipator in the collection.

Daguerreotype, ca. 1850s. Unidentified woman and man holding “The Emancipator” newspaper.

$3000 | Graphics

This collection contains 20 pre-printed daily diaries by Maria Jennings Barnard née Gibbs of Massachusetts, written between 1865 and 1932. Additional materials include eight diaries, account books, address books, memoranda books, and wallets pertaining to the family of Maria Barnard's granddaughter Mildred Grace Robbins née Adams between 1913 and the 1950s.

Maria J. Gibbs Barnard Diaries and Adams Family Collection, 1865-[1950s].

$3000 | Manuscripts

Supporting the purchase of an Epson Expression 12000XL Photo Scanner will help make thousands of pages of historical material readily available online, including unparalleled manuscript collections from the American Revolution.

Scanner

$4000 | Digitization

Edwin Orville Conklin served as a first sergeant in Company F of the 1st Michigan Sharpshooters during the Civil War. He acted as a recruiter in Michigan, helped guard Confederate prisoners at Camp Douglas in Chicago, and fought in the Overland Campaign before being captured at the Battle of the Crater. He died in 1864 as a prisoner of war at Danville, Virginia.

Edwin Orville Conklin Collection, 1863-1868. 76 letters, plus supplementary materials.

$4500 | Manuscripts

The Clements is currently fundraising to greatly expand our capacity to digitize historical materials. The digitization process requires powerful software and physical color targets that work together to capture accurate high-resolution scans meeting library standards for digital collections.

Scanning Process Requirements: Golden Touch color correction software and color targets

$4500 | Digitization

Panseron was a successful landscape designer in late-eighteenth-century France. In 1781 he published this guide to accepted and relatively standardized representations and colors to be used in topographical drawings. Contemporary renderings of topography, fortifications, and cities often have a uniform appearance, and for this imaginary landscape Panseron drew on traditional practices.

Panseron, Pierre. Etude pour le Lavis. Paris, 1781. Colored copperplate engraving.

$5000 | Maps