Collections : [University of Michigan William L. Clements Library]

An unnamed employee maintained this account book between 1889 and 1890 for a company producing handstamps, embossing stamps, and stencils. The volume includes the date, name of the patron, fees, and an occasional note about services. Frequently, the finished product for the client is stamped next to the entry.

An unnamed employee maintained this account book between 1889 and 1890 for a company producing handstamps, embossing stamps, and stencils. The volume includes the date, name of the patron, fees, and an occasional note about services. Frequently, the finished product for the client is stamped next to the entry.

The stamps predominantly represent names or symbols of businesses from across the United States, with many from the shoe and clothing industries. Other stamps described the quality of company's wares or noted patents, while some stamps were for individual names. One stamp advertised the one hundredth performance of the play "Oolah" on Broadway (p. 57). While many of the stamps feature graphic typography and embellishments, several stamps include images, such as feet in shoes (p. 54, 101), a dove (p. 73), a belt (p. 91), an American flag (p. 100) and eagle (p. 108), a crown (p. 100), four-leaf clovers (p. 104), a ship (p. 107), and a cow (p. 109). At least one stamp includes backward lettering (p. 101). Several embossed stamps were done on other paper and pasted into the volume or done directly on the paper in the volume.

This diary (around 130 pages) recounts the author's travels from New York to England and France from October 1830-March 1831. He commented on architecture, history, and politics. The attribution of the volume is based on the author's reference to his father, "W. Steele" (page 102).

This diary (around 130 pages) recounts the author's travels from New York to England and France from October 1830-March 1831. He commented on architecture, history, and politics. The attribution of the volume is based on the author's reference to his father, "W. Steele" (page 102).

The author left New York for Europe on October 24, 1830, for health reasons, and composed brief daily notes about his sea voyage until November 17. He resumed his account in Manchester, England, on December 8, 1830, and wrote regular diary entries until March 5, 1831. While in England, he traveled by stagecoach from Manchester to London, visiting Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Oxford along the way. The author described the scenery (with a focus on architecture) and history of the places he visited. He drew a detailed plan of Kenilworth Castle (page 19). While in London, he discussed the formation of a new Parliamentary government and noted the pollution visible from his window.

The diarist sailed to Boulogne, France, and then to Paris shortly thereafter. While in Paris, he described several prominent buildings, such as the Palais-Royal and the Notre Dame cathedral, and recorded notes about the history of the city and its buildings. He visited the Marquis de Lafayette at one of his weekly soirées, noting that printed versions of the Declaration of Independence, Washington's Farewell Address, Trumbull's picture of Congress, the Death of Wolfe, and an image of Bunker Hill were suspended in his chambers (page 69).

Steele described an operation performed on his throat by Baron Guillaume Dupuytren (pages 89-90). He frequently wrote about his social life and correspondence with acquaintances in the United States. Several entries from mid-February 1831 concern riots in Paris, which resulted in mob violence against the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. He later recorded some personal thoughts about the possible progression of French politics following the unrest.

This handmade account book contains financial accounts for the Stephentown (N.Y.) school district library, including fines imposed on individuals for late returns of books, as well as damages. This volume was repurposed later by William Wallace Elliot as a penmanship exercise book.

This handmade account book contains financial accounts of the Stephentown (N.Y.) school district library, including fines imposed on individuals for late returns of books, as well as damages. This volume was repurposed at a later date by William Wallace Elliot as a penmanship exercise book.

The final page is a "Register of damages to books." The cover is made from a scrap of a paper ream wrapper. Sections used by William for penmanship exercise feature repeated phrases and quoted passages.

The Stereograph-half album (34 x 27 cm) contains approximately 204 photographs, the majority of which are commercially produced half-steregraphs from locations in New Hampshire, New York, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Florida, Colorado and California.

The Stereograph-half album (34 x 27 cm) contains approximately 204 photographs, the majority of which are commercially produced half-steregraphs from locations in New Hampshire, New York, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Florida, Colorado and California. Photographs show Crawford Notch and Mt. Washington in New Hampshire; the American Falls of Niagara in winter; the Erie Canal in Lockport, N.Y.; landmarks and monuments in Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Va.; and 6 views of Lake George, N.Y. by Seneca Ray Stoddard, including the steamboat Horicon and the Sagamore Hotel. Florida photographs, some signed by photographer B.F. Upton, include Castillo de San Marcos; street scenes and a former slave market in St. Augustine; Harriet Beecher Stowe's house and family in Jacksonville; and African Americans standing near a log home and in a field of cotton. California scenes show the beach and town of Monterey, Cliff House in San Francisco, and 16 views of the Yosemite Valley. Two large albumen prints show Summit Station of the Central Pacific Railroad near Soda Springs, Calif., and gateway to the Garden of the Gods, Colorado, with ink stamp on verso: C.R. Savage, Art Bazaar, Salt Lake City, Utah. Additional photographs include botanical views, tourist attractions in Scotland, Paris, and other western European locations, and photographs of artworks.

The album is half bound leather with brown boards and is stored in a blue box.

This collection is made up of financial records related to goods shipped from Saint Louis, Missouri, to New Orleans, Louisiana, and other unspecified destinations in the early 1800s.

This collection contains financial records related to goods shipped from Saint Louis, Missouri, to New Orleans, Louisiana, and other unspecified destinations in the early 1800s. Most items are accounts pertaining to shipments of foodstuffs, linens, clothing, building materials, and other goods. The accounts include the price of each item or group of items. Some items include brief, signed statements and, in one case, a note regarding an additional fee following the receipt of a counterfeit banknote (April 9, 1838). Represented merchants include John and William Finney, B. Kraft, Francis [Brichta], Abraham Trier, Josiah Whiteside, and [?] & Adamson. The steamers mentioned include the Envoy, Clyde, and Detroit.

This 8-page manuscript speech was written by a currently unidentified author in the United States seeking the presidency in a temperance society, perhaps sometime in the 1840s or 1850s. The orator addressed "Fellow Citizens" and focused their anti-alcohol rhetoric on moral, social, and political issues. They focused on the fiscal costs of prosecutions, imprisonment, and overcrowded jails; on election corruption due to intemperate men selling their votes for alcohol money; and on the damnation of "drunkards" resulting from the immorality of liquor distributors. He expressed sympathy for the intemperate while simultaneously blaming them for moral failings. Brief references to the sex of the intemperate and conflict with Great Britain are present. The orator occasionally drew language and comparisons used in speeches and letters of the American Temperance Union, New-York Society for the Promotion of Intemperance, and others.

This 8-page manuscript speech was written by a currently unidentified author in the United States seeking the presidency in a temperance society, perhaps sometime in the 1840s or 1850s. The orator addressed "Fellow Citizens" and focused their anti-alcohol rhetoric on moral, social, and political issues. They focused on the fiscal costs of prosecutions, imprisonment, and overcrowded jails; on election corruption due to intemperate men selling their votes for alcohol money; and on the damnation of "drunkards" resulting from the immorality of liquor distributors. He expressed sympathy for the intemperate while simultaneously blaming them for moral failings. Brief references to the sex of the intemperate and conflict with Great Britain are present. The orator occasionally drew language and comparisons used in speeches and letters of the American Temperance Union, New-York Society for the Promotion of Intemperance, and others. The manuscript is made up of loose pages, hand-sewn on the left.

• Alcohol should only be consumed as prescribed by a "temperance Physician."
• The intemperate include not only laboring classes, but legislators and justice officials.
• The "stability of our free institutions" is at stake because of intemperate people's willingness to sell their votes for funds to purchase alcohol; the speaker claims that thousands of votes have been corrupted and that political parties filter money into elections for this purpose.
• Enough money is spent on alcohol to pay off the United States' foreign debt. Estimates $15,000,000/year spent in "this state alone."
• Bar rooms prepare people for crimes and God never gave people the right to get drunk. Distilleries are "smoking breathing holes of hell"; "...there are men, who would build grogshops, on a volcano if they could make money by it -- Nay they would go down, to the verry confines of hell and build grogshops there if they could only make money --" Reformed men should take their old rags and give them to the rum sellers, so that they might become paper makers. The drinker is wicked.
• Female drinkers are few and far between (crossed out is a sentence saying "but, I have saw a woman beastly drunk between this and the borough").
• Some of the intemperate succeed in escaping, but those who do not might become robbers or pirates. Wives, children, and society lose nothing when the drunkard dies, regardless of whether he has been a "tender father, a finished scholar, a profound statesman," but the addict loses his soul. They end up "Frozen in a storm, or drowned, or dying on his bed of straw, with delirium tremens, devils seizing him before his time, with none to care for him, none to lament him."
• "Drunkards demand our sympathy, I make no apology for drunkenness -- It is a sin, for which there can be no apology -- The moderate drinker, is master of himself -- He does what he does, deliberately, of free choice, feeling, and knowing, as he says, that there is no danger." But this is a slippery slope.
• "The Queen of England might send an army against us, and we could drive them into the sea -- But we must fight against intoxicating drinks by letting it alone come forward sign the pledge..."

This travel diary records the daily progress of a team of prospectors exploring possible routes for stagecoach lines in Texas, 1838. The entries primarily document details relevant to stagecoach operations such as terrain, populations, soil types, climate, and distances traveled.

This Texas travel diary records the daily progress of a team of prospectors exploring possible routes for stagecoach lines. The author does not record his personal experiences and includes only details relevant to operating a stagecoach line: terrain; banks and depths of rivers to be forded; costs of oats, corn and hay for feeding horses; the presence of Indians; populations to support mail delivery and transportation over the route; availability of timber for building bridges and ferries; competition from other stage lines; availability of potable water; agricultural potential of the land along the route; and mileages from one place to another.

The team set out from Jefferson City in mule-drawn wagons on January 4, 1838, and traveled southwest into the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). They crossed into the Oklahoma Cherokee Indian Territory at Neosho on January 18, and then headed south to Fort Gibson, where the author went alone on horseback to Fort Smith on the Arkansas border, and rejoined the group later.

They crossed Texas at Preston on the Red River (North of Dallas) at the end of January and arrived at Franklin (now El Paso) on March 17. On March 21, they set out on the return trip, taking a slightly different route, and returned to Preston on Sunday, April 11.

Of special interest are the descriptions of the terrain diagonally southwest across the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) and Texas in the early days of United States possession, while Texas was still an independent republic. The author notes the difficulties that would be encountered in establishing a mail and stage coach line through this terrain and comments on the agricultural possibilities of the land. He describes streams and rivers and recommends potential settings for stations.

This volume, titled "The Conundrum Crop for 1859," is a blank book containing 36 handwritten riddles and their answers. They include references to agriculture, literature and prominent figures (e.g. Lord Byron, Cowper, Louis Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel, Pope Leo, Shakespeare, Ivanhoe, Bunyan, and John G. Saxe), military culture, technology (iron steamers, railroads), race, gender, and geography.

This volume, titled "The Conundrum Crop for 1859," is a blank book containing 36 handwritten riddles and their answers. They include references to agriculture, literature and prominent figures (e.g. Lord Byron, Cowper, Louis Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel, Pope Leo, Shakespeare, Ivanhoe, Bunyan, and John G. Saxe), military culture, technology (iron steamers, railroads), race, gender, and geography.

This collection consists of volumes II, III, and IV of The History of the Reign of George III, King of Great Britain, which anonymous author "K. H." composed in Gloucestershire, England, between 1820 and 1823. The treatise covers Great Britain's domestic and international political affairs in depth, including conflicts in North America during the Revolutionary War era and the War of 1812.

This collection consists of volumes II, III, and IV of The History of the Reign of George III, King of Great Britain, which anonymous author "K. H." composed in Gloucestershire, England, between 1820 and 1823. The treatise covers Great Britain's domestic and international political affairs in depth, including conflicts in North America during the American Revolutionary era and the War of 1812. The location of volume I is unknown.

The three volumes, formally titled "The History of the Reign of George III, King of Great Britain (Designed as a Continuation of Mr. Smollet's History)," have 1,323 pages that cover the period between 1770 and the King's death in 1820. Volume IV also contains a 214-page appendix that provides supplemental information for the years 1763-1820. Each chapter is preceded by a detailed list of contents.

The densely-written account chronicles the country's internal and external political affairs, as well as events occurring throughout Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America and North Africa. Topics addressed concern parliamentary leadership, wars, shifting alliances among major European powers, the French Revolution, and Britain's relationship with Ireland. The final chapter contains the author's reflections on King George III, written shortly after the King's death.

The appendix at the conclusion of Volume IV contains annual lists of appointments, births, marriages, and deaths between 1763 and 1820, as well as other information about domestic and European political affairs. The appointments include British political, religious, and military figures, and reflect some changes in peerage. Also recorded are births and deaths of European royal families.

Seventeen individuals answered the questions printed in J. E. Spears' The Mental Portrait Album... (St. Louis: John L. Boland Book & Stationery Co., [1895]), which has a pictorial cloth cover showing a female figure and flowers. Entries between 1894 and 1895 were filled in by individuals residing in Missouri, Kentucky, and Kansas, while the later entries from 1910 to 1972 were written by those residing in Texas. Answers reveal contributors' favorite items, their tastes in music and literature, their opinions on admirable and detestable personality traits in men and women, as well as their beliefs about transportation, great reforms, follies, and wonders of the world.

Seventeen individuals answered the questions printed in J. E. Spears' The Mental Portrait Album. For Recording the Autographic Confessions of Friends and Acquaintances Regarding their Opinions, Tastes, Fancies, Etc. (St. Louis: John L. Boland Book & Stationery Co., [1895]), which has a pictorial cloth cover showing a female figure and flowers. Entries between 1894 and 1895 were filled in by individuals residing in Louisville and Danville, Kentucky; Pleasant Hill, Kansas City, Harrisonville, and Hughesville, Missouri; and Kansas City, Kansas, while the later entries from 1910 to 1972 were written by those residing in Forney and Wichita Falls, Texas. Answers reveal contributors' favorite items, their tastes in music and literature, their opinions on admirable and detestable personality traits in men and women, as well as their beliefs about transportation, great reforms, follies, and wonders of the world. Varying beliefs and prejudices are reflected, including those relating to women's rights, immigration, race (in particular against those of Mexican descent), and politics. Common answers celebrating emerging technologies, inventors, and historical figures, such as Thomas Edison and Robert E. Lee, indicate broader social phenomena.

Contributors noted their favorites of the following categories:

Color, Flower, Book, Animal, Season, Poet or Poetess, Prose Writer, Composer, Character in History, Character in Romance, Scenery, Music, Amusement, Occupation During a Summer's Vacation, and My Pet Hobby.

• My Chief Ambition in Life
• The trait I most admire in a woman
• The trait I most admire in a man
• The trait I most detest in each
• The fault for which I have the most toleration in another person
• That for which I have the least
• The qualifications or accomplishments I most desire in a matrimonial partner
• My idea of perfect happiness
• My idea of real misery
• There is always some one person, or thing, for which we have an attachment exceeding all other endearments in intensity. For me it is for
• Of the various modes of traveling, I prefer
• If privileged to make a journey, the single place or locality I would prefer to visit, above all others would be
• As a traveling companion, I would most highly appreciate
• Shipwrecked on a deserted island, I would most desire
• The greatest wonder of the world, according to my estimation, is
• As an inventor, I think the greatest service towards the world's progress has been rendered by
• Of the many reforms at present under consideration, I most sincerely and particularly advocate
• The greatest folly in the Nineteenth Century, in my opinion, is
• My motto