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

The Carlos Addision Rugg journals offer a glimpse into the activities of a United States Christian Commission agent operating in Virginia during the Civil War.

On September 11, 1861, Carlos A. Rugg enlisted at Perryburg, N.Y., in Co. K of the 9th New York Cavalry Regiment. Rugg was detailed as battalion Veterinary Surgeon in December, but served in that capacity only until the 20th of February, 1862, when he was discharged at Washington, D.C., following an injury inflicted by a horse. Rugg apparently recovered from these injuries, and in October, 1864, joined the U.S. Christian Commission in order to 'do his part' for the war effort. He served for the Commission in eastern Virginia, distributing Bibles and tracts and ministering to and assisting soldiers and freedmen.

This account book pertains to the personal finances of Carlos Daggett, a farmer and laborer in East Sudbury, Massachusetts, between 1818 and 1870. The accounts concern the prices of manufactured goods, foods, and labor.

This 171-page account book pertains to the personal finances of Carlos Daggett, a farmer and laborer in East Sudbury, Massachusetts, between 1818 and 1870. The title page records Daggett's name, location, and the date (November 22, 1818), along with a small sketch of a man viewed in profile. Most of the accounts are organized by creditor or debtor, and date between November 22, 1818-1859. Pages 137-138 document "Cash Paid Out" from 1864-1870. Many early accounts concern the prices of shoes, boots, and cobbling work. Costs associated with sawing shingles are reported throughout the volume. The accounts reflect additional aspects of Daggett's life, such as his job driving a bread wagon and a day's absence because of his decision to hunt foxes (p. 9).

The volume includes accounts with several women, including Alice Daggett, "Mary," and "Susan." In October 1845, Carlos Daggett paid for supplies and labor to repair Alice Daggett's chimney (p. 91). Several entries refer to travel to Roxbury, Cambridge, and Boston, Massachusetts. Later accounts include prices for produce and clothing.

This collection is made up of around 150 letters that Sergeant Carl P. Swanson wrote to his family in Sparta, Michigan, while serving in the United States Army during World War II. Swanson served with the 976th Engineer Maintenance Company in Europe from July 1944-January 1946.

This collection is made up of around 150 letters that Sergeant Carl P. Swanson wrote to his family in Sparta, Michigan, while serving in the United States Army during World War II. Swanson served with the 976th Engineer Maintenance Company in Europe from July 1944-January 1946.

Carl Philip Swanson regularly corresponded with his parents and siblings throughout his military service. He discussed his daily routine and training exercises at Fort Custer, Michigan, and Camp Claiborne, Louisiana, in the summer of 1943. After October 1943, he was stationed at Camp McCain, Mississippi, where he joined an engineer regiment. Swanson often commented on his travels between different camps, particularly in the South, and on his experiences while on leave. On October 25, 1943, he described a visit to Grenada, Mississippi, where he noticed the segregation between African Americans and whites.

After his arrival in England in July 1944, Swanson served in France, Germany, and Belgium, where his regiment repaired equipment. He continually assured his parents that he was far behind the front lines and shared his optimism about a quick end to the war. He also mentioned his food, lodgings, and the scenery, which included scenes of destruction in France. In his leisure time, particularly after the German surrender, he attended movies and USO shows. Swanson occasionally referred to Buchenwald, which he had seen after its liberation, and noted the animosity between Polish guards and German prisoners of war in a Belgian camp (October 24, 1945). While on leave in England after the war, he wrote about his relationship with an English woman named Brenda. Swanson's final letter is from Newfoundland, Canada, in January 1946, and he sent 3 telegrams shortly afterward about his return to the United States.

Carl Swanson's correspondence includes V-mail letters, a greeting card, and stationery from the United States Army and Camp McCain. Undated items are letters, a postcard with a painting of Marseille, France, and a printed brochure about the YMCA's work with Polish youth after the war. The Swanson family occasionally received letters from acquaintances.

This collection is made up of 15 letters that Sergeant Carl Thomas wrote to his wife Ruth while serving with the 4024th Quartermaster Truck Company in India and Burma during World War II. Also included are 3 letters that Carl and Ruth received from acquaintances and an unidentified photograph.

This collection is made up of 15 letters that Sergeant Carl Thomas wrote to his wife Ruth while serving with the 4024th Quartermaster Truck Company in India and Burma during World War II. Also included are 3 letters that Carl and Ruth received from acquaintances and an unidentified photograph.

The first two items are letters that Carl Thomas received from friends while stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in mid-1943. Lieutenant Louis Zanine and Private Roosevelt Thomas discussed mutual acquaintances and their military assignments. Ruth Thomas also received a V-mail letter from Corporal Walter Washington, who was then serving in Europe with the 386th Engineer Battalion, Company B.

Carl Thomas wrote the remaining 15 letters to his wife Ruth between September 7, 1944, and February 14, 1945. He often wrote on United States Armed Forces stationery, and one of his letters (on United States Service of Supply stationery) includes a printed illustration of a snake charmer. In his brief letters, Carl discussed the weather, homesickness, boredom, and abstention from alcohol. He sent Ruth and others pillowcases from India or Burma, where he served throughout the final years of the war. The collection includes a photograph of an unidentified landscape.

This collection is made up of eight partially printed postcards addressed to Governor of New York Roswell P. Flower, respecting the trial of convicted murderer Carlyle Harris (1868-1893). Harris secretly married Mary Helen Potts in 1890. After a traumatic termination of pregnancy and ensuing family issues, Helen took medication tainted with a lethal dose of morphine given to her by Harris. These postcards are from citizens in New York, Chicago, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., offering their opinions on Harris' sentence. They suggest commuting his sentence to 10 years, examining him to find out if he suffered the effects of being "electro magnetised", endorsing capital punishment for the "devilish" crime, and believing that he was innocent.

This collection is made up of eight partially printed postcards addressed to Governor of New York Roswell P. Flower, respecting the trial of convicted murderer Carlyle Harris (1868-1893). Harris secretly married Mary Helen Potts in 1890. After a traumatic termination of pregnancy and ensuing family issues, Helen took medication tainted with a lethal dose of morphine. These postcards are from citizens in New York, Chicago, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., offering their opinions on Harris' sentence. They suggest commuting his sentence to 10 years, examining him to find out if he suffered the effects of being "electro magnetised", endorsing capital punishment for the "devilish" crime, and believing that he was innocent.

This collection contains six letters from the Carmany brothers and William Murray to their family members in Pennsylvania during the Civil War. They include an account of the Battle of Fredericksburg and discussions of camp life.

The collection contains six letters, three from Adam Carmany, two from Murray and one from William Carmany, all written to family members in Lebanon County. Each of the three are fine, literate writers.

William Murray's letters were written at a time when he was making efforts to resign his commission.Noteworthy are Adam Carmany's description of pillaging horses and anything alive and edible during the march to Fredericksburg, "we killed every thing we met, went into pig stables took out all the pigs and killed them, also all the chickens, turkeys, geese, calves, oxen, and in fact everything we met that was fit to eat." He also provides an interesting discussion of camp shortly after the regiment's arrival outside of Washington, including horse stealing and foraging, and an account of the vaccination against smallpox for those members of the regiment who were not already taken with the disease. By far the highlight of the collection, however, is William Carmany's account of the Battle of Fredericksburg, the rout of his company under fire, and his grisly description of burial detail under a flag of truce. Most of the bodies of Union soldiers, he reported, had been stripped naked, and the Confederates assigned to burial duty, "the hardest looking men I ever did see," were wearing an odd assortment of Union blue and Confederate grey.

This collection is made up of correspondence related to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The letters concern pensions for retired academics, board meetings, reports, and other administrative issues.

This collection (27 items) is made up primarily of incoming correspondence to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Most items are reference letters and other correspondence regarding pensions for university professors and administrators. Additional letters concern reports, board meetings, speaking engagements, and other administrative affairs. See the Detailed Box and Folder Listing for more information about each item.

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.

This unattributed pocket ledger was likely kept by a man laboring as a carpenter, recording debts and credits related to his work from 1855 to 1864. The writer repaired items such as gates, doors, and boats. He also documented making doors, staining wood, sawing logs, getting in wood, drawing boards, working on houses, and framing buildings. Two pages at the end of the volume record his cash accounts in 1864, distinguishing between cash on hand, greenbacks, eastern bills, and scrip. Several other pages document hours worked on projects and various dimensions of wood for projects. Four outlines of what appears to be the end of a banister or other woodwork piece are drawn in pencil near the end of the volume. A list of woodworking tools and a carte-de-visite of a woman wearing a polka dot dress are stored in the back pocket of the volume.

The Carrie M. Stewart and Arthur K. Kepner collection consists of the couple's love letters to one another, written in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of the letters pertain to their lives in northeastern Ohio.

The Carrie M. Stewart and Arthur K. Kepner collection (1 linear foot) consists of the couple's love letters, written in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of their letters pertain to their lives in northeastern Ohio. The collection also includes a poem and short story, a photograph, photographic negatives, newspaper clippings, and ephemera.

The Correspondence series contains approximately 250 dated and 150 undated letters. Among the first 10 items are 4 personal letters to James R. Brown, including 3 from his sister, Martha M. Ferguson of Warren, Ohio (August 18, 1870-September 19, 1877). Carrie M. Stewart received 6 letters from acquaintances between April 23, 1893, and April 10, 1898. The bulk of the series is made up of love letters between Carrie M. Stewart (later Kepner) and Arthur King Kepner, whom she addressed as "King." From 1898-1908, Stewart and Kepner wrote to each other about their families and social lives in eastern Ohio. Stewart lived in Hartford, Ohio, and often traveled to Sharon, Pennsylvania; Kepner attended Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and later worked in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Weldon, Ohio. Most of the letters pre-date their 1906 marriage, and many concern their relationship and their separation. Other correspondence includes several letters to Carrie Stewart Kepner from A. J. McFarland ("Jerry" or "Archie"), an acquaintance in Dillonvale, Ohio. Some of the undated letters are composed on partially printed (blank) receipts from D. C. Stewart's lumber company in Hartford, Ohio. An undated letter from Thomas B. Moreland, a funeral director in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, provides a reference for Kepner from his time employed as an assistant undertaker.

The Writings series (2 items) contains a poem and a short story entitled "My Little People of the Snow."

The Photographic Negatives series includes 2 undated photographic negatives of people outside of a house. An additional 18 negatives of outdoor scenes and various persons are housed with A. J. McFarland's letter of February 27, 1902.

The Newspaper Clippings series consists of 17 clippings. Several of the clippings pertain to the marriage of Carrie Stewart and Arthur King Kepner and other weddings; others are news stories, including a story about the death of an undertaker in Kinsman, Pennsylvania.

The Ephemera series contains 6 items, including a prescription, an invitation, a visiting card, and an advertisement for a sauce pan with a note from Mrs. King Kepner ordering the sauce pan from Aluminum Cooking Utensil Co.