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This collection consists of personal letters that Caroline F. Putnam, an antislavery activist and schoolteacher, wrote to Sallie Holley and Emily Howland, her colleagues and friends, between 1868 and around 1877. Putnam described the everyday challenges of running a school for freed slaves in Lottsburg, Virginia, as well as Reconstruction politics in the postwar South.

This collection (111 items) contains personal letters that antislavery activist and schoolteacher Caroline F. Putnam wrote to Sallie Holley and Emily Howland, her colleagues and friends, between October 22, 1868, and 1877. Putnam described the everyday challenges of running a freedmen's school in Lottsburg, Virginia, as well as Reconstruction politics in the postwar South.

In her earliest letters, Putnam discussed an upcoming trip to Virginia; her impressions of Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.; and the opening of the Holley School in Lottsburg Virginia, in 1868. Most letters pertain to her life and work at the Holley School, the administrative aspects of running the school, and the numerous struggles faced by her students, mostly freed slaves and their children. On November 21, 1868, she described classroom conditions on one particularly cold evening, encouraged other educated women to help educate former slaves, and favorably compared her students to their white counterparts. Her letters to Holley often mention the work of Emily Howland, who ran a similar school in Heathsville, Virginia, until 1870. In her later letters, Putnam addressed the positive and negative responses to the school from members of the community, such as the moving reflection of an African American preacher overwhelmed by seeing children from his community coming home from school, as only white children had been able to do before the war (November 21, 1868).

Putnam also wrote about local politics and the Grant administration. For example, she addressed one letter to Senator Charles Sumner, congratulating him on his efforts to prevent disenfranchisement of freedmen (December 25, 1869). She read widely, and her letters often contained references to both local and national newspapers.

Additional material includes a printed invitation from Booker T. Washington to the Fourth Annual Session of the Tuskegee Negro Conference (ca. 1895), and several fragments.

The Horatio Noyes collection is made up of letters and essays pertaining to Louisiana sugar plantations, life on the Wyoming frontier, travels through the South, the history of astronomy, and other subjects.

The Horatio Noyes collection is made up of 5 letters (28 pages) and 2 essays (70 pages). Noyes wrote a detailed letter to his son Charles in December 1871 about his travels in rural Louisiana, including his impressions of riverboat steamers and sugar plantations. A later draft (unsigned) describes the author's travels in Virginia and North Carolina, with a detailed description of Richmond and observations about Southern culture. Two unsigned letters from late 1879 and early 1880 describe a soldier's life on the Wyoming frontier, with Horatio Noyes's requests for the letters to be proofed and returned to him. Two lengthy essays concern the history of astronomy and contemporary astronomical knowledge, particularly about the Solar System. See the Detailed Box and Folder Listing for more information.

The Philip Bacon papers contain the incoming and outgoing correspondence of Philip Bacon, who served in the 1st and 12th Connecticut infantry regiments during the Civil War. Bacon discussed Civil War-era New Orleans and the difficulties of running a Louisiana plantation during the latter part of the war.

The Philip Bacon papers contain both incoming and outgoing correspondence of Bacon. The collection contains a total of 50 letters, primarily written By Philip Bacon to his father, Richard Bacon; of his letters, he wrote six during his Civil War service, and received nine from various friends from Connecticut. In his letters to family and friends, he described the city of New Orleans shortly after its surrender and gave his opinions on the conduct of the war. On September 17, 1862, he wrote his father, "Mr. Lincoln is to [sic] slow, and at the rate we are now going on it will take twenty years to finish the war. Things look very bad to my mind so far." As the war progressed, Bacon showed a deep interest in the affairs of freedmen, and became an outspoken abolitionist. After he left the service, he focused on his two plantations in Louisiana, especially concerning his need for various farm implements and his initial difficulties growing sugar cane and cotton. Bacon became increasingly involved with the plight of local African Americans, and described their general education (January 12, 1864) and the establishment of various schools for freedmen (April 17, 1864). Other writers include eight of Bacon's Connecticut acquaintances, who discussed politics, a lawsuit (January 21, 1867), and farming.