The William L. Clements Library would like to take an opportunity to celebrate donations and purchases that add new archival materials to existing collections. These are cases in which the library may have owned a set of papers for decades, but which have recently been expanded to include hitherto unknown or unresearched source materials. These acquisitions safely and happily unite formerly disparate personal and family papers under one roof for the benefit of all researchers.
Joseph Story Papers, 1794-1851
An addition of 69 incoming letters to U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Massachusetts State Representative, and professor Joseph Story has been united with the library’s previous collection of 685 similar letters. The new materials pertain to aspects of his career in law, questions about nuances in cases, requests for information or documents, introductions, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, aspects of U.S. Supreme Court cases, congressional matters, and other subjects. One intriguing letter from J. Stickney (September 10, 1813) pertains to a Rhode Island circuit court case involving the legality of holding a man in the Providence jail for piracy. On November 8, 1842, Roland Gelston, superintendent of the Sailor’s Home in New York, pressed Story for his judicial opinion on the process of citizenship, naturalization, and oaths of allegiance for sailors. He estimated 2/3 of the seamen working on American ships were foreigners, resulting in foreign tonnage requirements when ships arrived in the United States, and in turn leading to men regularly committing perjury to avoid the issue. A complete inventory of the new letters is located here: Joseph Story Addition Inventory. The updated finding aid is located here: Joseph Story Papers, 1794-1851.
A portion of the recent addition of 69 letters to the Joseph Story Papers, as seen prior to housing and arrangement.
The images above are two of many beautiful portraits donated to the Clements Library’s DuBois-Ogden-McIlvaine Family Papers by Thedra Esther Oliver Nichols.
In the mid-1980s, the Clements Library received a large donation of papers from Koert Burnham, of the intermarried DuBois, Ogden, and McIlvaine families of New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and Louisiana. Among the individuals prominent in the collection were Sarah Platt Ogden (1782-1836), who married merchant Cornelius DuBois (1771-1846), their children, and in-law Episcopal Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine (1799-1883). Thanks to a voluminous recent donation by Thedra Esther Oliver Nichols, the papers now include daguerreotype, ambrotype, tintype, and other family portraits; over 200 newly available letters; 69 journals, daybooks, and account books of Episcopal Priest and Civil War Chaplain George W. DuBois (1821-1910); and much more. The updated finding aid is located here: DuBois-Ogden-MacIlvaine Family Papers, 1786-1983.
Slide one: 1/4 plate daguerreotype of Emily Coxe McIlvaine (1801-1877), possibly Maria Coxe McIlvaine DuBois (1831-1923). The interior label of this portrait indicates that this is “Bishop McIlvaine’s wife, Maria Coxe,” a confused identification since Bishop Charles P. McIlvaine’s spouse was Emily Coxe. Their daughter Maria Coxe McIlvaine married Rev. George W. DuBois, perhaps accounting for the “Maria Coxe” label.
Slide two: 1/6 plate daguerreotype of George W. DuBois (1822-1910) wearing an overcoat and fur collar.
MacDonald Family Papers, 1911-1950
A group of letters, documents, printed materials, photographs, and a photograph album have been added to the papers of Wilfrid and Mabel MacDonald, who lived and taught at Lingnan University at Guangzhou, China, in the 1930s. While the correspondence reflects the rising tensions leading up to the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, the new photograph album and 50 photographs show Chinese colleagues, friends, household workers, and residents of Canton (i.e. Guangzhou), scenes of the campus of the Canton Christian College, rice crops, men at work with rice and in construction, military groups in formation and being inspected, water buffalo, boats of various types, rickshaws, pagodas, and city scenes. These new materials were a generous gift of Joan Zumoff. The updated finding aid is located here: MacDonald Family Papers, 1911-1950.
We could highlight many other recent examples, such as George Baney’s and Bill Bigelow’s important donations that expanded the American Revolution and 19th century medical and religious content of the Southgate Family Papers (Finding Aid). So, too, have the Civil War papers of 1st Ohio Cavalry Regiment officer William Leontis Curry (Finding Aid) grown thanks to donations by and in the memory of Martha B. Donovan. The Vashti Detwiler Garwood Collection (Finding Aid) has grown by 75 letters on account of generous donation by Kip Garwood-Tull. This correspondence adds significantly to our understanding of Vashti Garwood’s personal life, her education at Boston Medical College, and her work as schoolteacher and physician in Ohio, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Michigan. Other recently processed additions include 32 letters of Royal Navy sailor and officer John Brand Umfreville (Finding Aid), 11 letters by Horace Holley while studying at Yale College, 1799-1803 (Finding Aid), 40 incoming letters to Tobias Lear, largely during his service as U.S. Consul to Algiers (Finding Aid); Matthew Skinner’s gift of papers to the Trimble Family Papers (Finding Aid), and many more equally deserving gifts and purchases.
Thank you to our thoughtful and generous donors.