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An anonymous author dedicated this 44cm x 29cm volume, "A Missionary's Fate. A Prophecy," to Miss Minnie Jenks, in or after 1868. It includes seven pages of neatly written, rhyming, narrative poetry accompanied by five ink and watercolor illustrations. This xenophobic cautionary poem and illustrations trace a young woman's fatal transatlantic Christian missionary expedition. She departs the United States intending to convert and teach Assamese people, but she is instead transported to Africa where her solitary missionary efforts result in her murder and cannibalization. The illustrations include her seaside departure, the missionary standing on a stump and singing to (racist caricatures of) African men, cannibalism, African men trying on the woman's clothing, and a scene of grief back in the United States.

An anonymous author dedicated this 44cm x 29cm volume, "A Missionary's Fate. A Prophecy," to Miss Minnie Jenks, in or after 1868. It includes seven pages of neatly written, rhyming, narrative poetry accompanied by five ink and watercolor illustrations. This xenophobic cautionary poem and illustrations trace a young woman's fatal transatlantic Christian missionary expedition. She departs the United States intending to convert and teach Assamese people, but she is instead transported to Africa where her solitary missionary efforts result in her murder and cannibalization. The poem ends with her grief-stricken family members weeping and fainting back home, and a concluding moral.

The illustrations include a dock scene, with passengers boarding a ship, persons on the dock waving farewell, and sailors at work on deck. Another shows the missionary woman standing on a stump with a hymn book (sheet music for "In the Sweet Bye and Bye" visible) and singing to a group of African men. The artist portrayed them as racist caricatures, and the men are holding knives, testing their edges, and sharpening teeth with an iron file. The following image depicts the woman on the ground with the men eating or carrying off her bones and severed parts of her body. Next, the men are trying on the woman's clothing; a chief is wearing her bonnet and carrying her parasol and purse/bag, another man is putting on her shoes, and another wears her skirt. The concluding artwork is a parlor scene back in the United States, wherein family and friends received a postal parcel containing a piece of the missionary's dress, her hymn book, a lock of her hair, and a shoestring. The people are shown weeping into handkerchiefs, one of them fainted and one holding the lock of hair.

A transcription of the seventh, final page of the poem--and the moral of the tale--is: "Oh gentle maid, on good intent, / Who would in 'Missions' lead the van, / Take warning from this maid, who went / Afar to free from Ignorance' ban. / Do all the good that here you can / Where you may have a little ease; / 'Home Missions' try on some one man - / Or two or more, if so you please, - / But do not try the Asamese."

The Goodman-Vent papers contain letters and writings from the families of Thomas Goodman and Charles Frederick Vent, two prominent 19th century Chicago and Cincinnati businessmen. Of note are detailed eyewitness accounts the great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The Goodman-Vent papers (1,333 items) contain letters and writings from the families of Thomas Goodman and Charles Frederick Vent, two prominent 19th-century Chicago businessmen. The collection consists of 1,285 letters, a diary, an account book, 4 poems, 5 genealogical items, 33 printed items, 4 maps, and a lock of hair. Of note are detailed eyewitness accounts the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

The Correspondence series (1,285 items), 1837 to 1896, centers on business, family, and social lives of Charles Frederick Vent, Thomas Goodman, and their families. Other families represented are the Chickerings and the Saxons.

The earliest letters were addressed to Vent from his family and friends during the time when he was a teacher in Massachusetts (1837), as well as his ventures in Jacksonville, Illinois (1838), Boston, Massachusetts (1842), Dartmouth, New Hampshire (1848), and Pittsfield, New Hampshire (1849). Of interest are several letters from his maternal grandfather, Jonas Chickering, the noted piano-maker, who paid for his education. In the 1850s, while Vent was working as an Ohio salesman, most of his letters were from salesmen working under him; these offer a view into everyday life in small towns in the Midwest.

From the 1860s through the end of the collection, the letters are largely to and from the Goodman and Vent families and their many well-known and influential friends. Charles Vent and Thomas Goodman discussed a wide range of subjects, including personal and family affairs; business dealings; city, state, and national politics; the Civil War; and social and religious topics. In one instance, Goodman wrote to Vent: "A collection of your letters and mine would form a pretty fair history of the family" (December 3, 1871). While not necessarily comprehensive, these items also document many aspects of Chicago and Cincinnati society during the last half of the 19th century.

The Civil War era letters contain items from both the front lines and the home front. Highlights include a gloomy eyewitness account of First Bull Run, in which friend John Hirshorne reprimanded Union soldiers for being too confident (July 24, 1861). Vent was involved in raising a brigade called the Teachers Home Guard, made up largely of teachers in Cincinnati, that was formed to fend off any potential attacks on Cincinnati. In one letter he described purchasing arms for the regiment from Colt and Justice and Ketteridge (June 1861).

Of particular note are letters that describe the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Hannah Goodman started to write one letter shortly after the fire began to spread, and provided a minute by minute account of the inferno as it blazed from the west bank of the river toward the downtown area. The family wrote updates throughout the night and for several days after the fire; these provide a detailed record of the destruction. Later letters document the families' personal struggles (tensions within the family, the death of Vent's 14-year-old daughter in 1877) and economic hardships.

• 7 letters from Vent’s schoolmate James Emerson, a noted abolitionist, who described the conditions of blacks in the South (March 18, 1855, January 13, 1856, December 21, 1856, January 27, 1858, March 16, 1860, March 1, 1866, and undated).
• Mentions of the first African Americans to be baptized in the family’s church (February 11 and October 28, 1866).

• May 30, 1861: an engraving of the Colt factory
• June 28, 1861: a letterhead engraving of the Charles Cammell and Co. Cyclops Steel Works, in Sheffield, England
• March 20, 1862: a lithograph letterhead of a riverscape in Peoria, Illinois
• 1871: a map of the "burnt district" in Chicago, Hannah Goodman to Emily Goodman Vent and Charles Vent
• Undated: a picture of a Young Ladies' Collegiate Institute and Seminary in Monroe City, Michigan

The Diary and Account Book series contains a tiny diary from March 1-19, 1877, documenting the child Kitty Vent's sickness and death. The 35-page account book documents daily cash expenses for supplies and serives but is undated and unattributed.

The Poetry series (4 items) consists of a poem from Thomas Goodman to his wife on her birthday (1890); a 20-page poetry book written by Elizabeth "Eliza" Fisher Vent of Dedham, Massachusetts, who was the grandmother of Charles Vent; a poem entitled "Going Forward"; and a poem by Annie Goodman entitled "Secrets."

The Genealogy series (5 items) contains a bound journal (51 pages, 20 blank pages) copied by Thomas Goodman Vent in 1920 from a manuscript created by Josiah Boutelle Chickering, Sarah Maria Brown Chickering, and her son Clifford Cummings Chickering. This documents the Chickering, Boutelle, Brown, Lovering, Wheeler, Vent, and Goodman families as early as 1576, with more thorough family records starting in the 19th century.

• A printed Memoranda of Anniversaries, labeled "PRIVATE," containing birth and death information of the Goodman and Vent families (1884)
• A one-page memorandum of birth and death dates for the Goodman family
• A copy of a grave marker for Mary Wright
• A 21-page genealogy of the Fisher family created by Elizabeth Fisher Vent and her daughter-in-law Melinda Chickering Vent

• Speeches Delivered at the Eighteenth Ward Republican Festival In Commemoration of the Birth of Washington (February 22, 1860)
• Items celebrating the 50th anniversary of Thomas and Hannah Goodman including a 23page printed booklet (1888)
• A 16-page printed booklet celebrating Thomas Goodman's 75th birthday
• A two-page printed "Tribute to the Memory of Rev. William Goodman" (1918)
• Education material including teaching certificates and report cards
• Fifteen newspaper clippings, including items related to Ida Saxton McKinley, wife of President McKinley
• Maps of Spring Grove and Graceland cemeteries

The Realia series contains a lock of hair (unidentified).