Five letters, all written in 1853, supporting future Confederate Brig-Gen. Richard Griffith’s (successful) effort to be appointed U.S. Marshall of Mississippi, including some Mexican War and Jefferson Davis content. A native of Pennsylvania, Richard Griffith (1814–1862) moved to Mississippi around 1840, where he lived until the outbreak of the.....
![Archive Relating to the Founding of the Town of Brewer, Maine]. Josiah Brewer, Joseph Sewell](/pictures/thumb/4192_1.jpg?v=1560463560)
A substantial archive of manuscript documents and letters, many of which relate to the early development of the town of Brewer, Maine and the role of Samuel B. Stone as “father of the town,” with letters concerning the administration and development of land in nearby Eddington, etc. The.....
![A letter to arms manufacturer James T. Ames]. Calvin Brown](/pictures/thumb/4415_1.jpg?v=1560463689)
A firsthand account of the Mare Island Navy Yard, then under construction, where the U.S. Navy civil engineer Calvin Brown would design and build Drydock #1—considered both his masterwork and one of the most remarkable masonry structures in California and the broader U.S. The Mare Island Naval Shipyard.....
![A letter from a young Ziegfeld Follies hopeful.]. Dumbris?, Betty](/pictures/thumb/7195_1.jpg?v=1640792262)
A vivacious letter from a soon-to-be Ziegfeld Follies girl, capturing the voice and excitement of “the glory days” of American theatrical revue. This letter, written by young woman in the midst of a multi-part audition for Ziegfeld’s Follies, provides a breathless glimpse of the gateway to Florenz Ziegfeld’s.....
An interesting letter revealing some of the difficulties involved in the life of an itinerant artist in the first half of the nineteenth century, addressed to Abraham Bell & Son, a Quaker shipping firm located in New York City. Edouart, writing from Saratoga, is inquiring about his supply cases which.....
![Autograph letters of Harriet E. Freeman to Edward E. Hale.]. Harriet E. Freeman](/pictures/thumb/7056_1.jpg?v=1638482717)
An important trove of letters—parts of which are written in secret code—from Harriet Freeman to the prominent author Rev. Edward Everett Hale, further illuminating their twenty-five years of clandestine love. These letters chronicle Freeman’s extensive trip through Italy and Tunisia; suggest the depth and complication of her personal and intellectual.....
![Autograph letter to Capt. Chas. H. Scott on raising an African American battalion in Alabama]....](/pictures/thumb/7230_1.jpg?v=1640900141)
A revealing letter written by a white officer Robert Gage who was selected by Alabama’s Governor to command an African American battalion in the Spanish-American War. The letter hints at Gage’s intentions for commanding the battalion, as well the role of politics and nepotism in making military appointments. After.....
Two letters of a Quaker woman living in Maryland and holding down the fort in her husband’s absence, recounting to him the aftermath of the 1864 Confederate attack on Washington. “Good news, good news,” begins the first of these two letters from Margaret Hallowell (née Stabler) to her husband.....
An archive compiled by one J.L. Ferrell, mostly consisting of letters from his eventual wife Hazel E. Pinkard, illuminating her progression from college courses, dances, and basketball games to marriage, jobs, and children, dogged all the while by financial worry and occasional loneliness. Also included are various papers relating to.....
A multifaceted letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War. Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot.....
![Typed Letter Signed by Jackie Kennedy]. Jacqueline Kennedy](/pictures/thumb/4148_1.jpg?v=1560463549)
A letter from Jackie Kennedy composed shortly after her husband’s election thanking the president of the Shelburne Museum for a gift. In this letter typed on White House stationary, dated December 15, 1961, Jackie thanks J. Watson Webb, Jr., the president of the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, for “the.....
![Autograph letter from a soldier at Fort Cumberland to Thomas Hancock of Boston]. George Lewis](/pictures/thumb/6426_1.jpg?v=1614709145)
A French and Indian War-era letter addressed to Thomas Hancock Esq. of Boston concerning men and supplies at Fort Cumberland, written three years after the fort fell to British and colonial forces. George Lewis is recorded in 1750 as a “boatmaster” in Gorham's Rangers—one of the most notable ranger units.....
![Donation receipt and correspondence between the Library of Congress and State of Maryland.]. John...](/pictures/thumb/5580_1.jpg?v=1622475905)
A group of papers documenting book donations made by the Maryland State Library to the Library of Congress in 1841, including personal correspondence between librarians John S. Meehan of the library of Congress and D. Ridgley of State Library of Maryland. A form issued by The Committee on the.....
![Autograph letter describing the San Francisco earthquake and its aftermath.]. Ella Watson Mizner](/pictures/thumb/7211_1.jpg?v=1640726168)
An eyewitness account of the San Francisco earthquake by a socially prominent woman, highlighting the grim shock that united the city as well as the class and wealth differences that stratified its aftermath. “Three fourths of San Francisco has disappeared from the face of the earth & I......
A reflection on Portland, Maine in the aftermath of the great fire of 1866, by important and well-traveled British watercolorist Elizabeth Murray, accompanied by a watercolor sketch of a young Spanish woman. Murray describes the tragic Portland scene as: “One sea of fire, and now one charred blackened.....
An intimately familiar and very anxious letter from Robert Patterson to his brother-in-law William Canon, as federal troops marched in to suppress the three-year Whiskey Rebellion. Patterson composed this letter at Jean Bonnet's Tavern in Bedford, Pennsylvania, a hotbed of rebel sentiment (and still in operation today). Patterson was traveling.....
![The Making of an American. [With two autograph letters inserted]. Jacob A. Riis](/pictures/thumb/3904_1.jpg?v=1560463450)
The autobiography of social reformer Jacob Riis, along with two letters from Riis to influential Ellis Island immigration doctor Victor Safford. First published in 1901, this is a 1902 printing. Riis’s autobiography begins with his youth in Denmark (including his initially one-sided bond with his beloved wife Elizabeth), and his.....
![1860 “Bleeding Kansas” Letter.]. Lorenzo Dow Round](/pictures/thumb/5872_1.jpg?v=1586262483)
A letter written from Kansas Territory on the state of politics at the time of the quest for statehood, the bloodless “Battle of Paris,” the Wyandotte Constitution, and John Brown. Originally from Herkimer County, New York, Lorenzo Dow Round (1813–1877) apparently settled in Kansas some time in the 1850s. Responding.....
![Letter By The Notorious Murderer Robert Stroud, “The Birdman of Alcatraz.”]. Robert Stroud](/pictures/thumb/4920_1.jpg?v=1560463996)
A captivating letter by Robert Stroud—known as “the Birdman of Alcatraz”—to his friend Fred Daw, concerning Stroud’s research on canaries, his violent childhood, the forthcoming biopic on him, his projected multi-volume autobiography, his challenge to Darwin, and more. Imprisoned at Alcatraz, Robert Stroud (1890–1963) here writes to his long-time.....
![An early letter to a friend on the mainland.]. Celia Laighton Thaxter](/pictures/thumb/6294_1.jpg?v=1642004557)
A early letter by Celia Thaxter (née Laighton) to her friend Martha Kuhn of Boston, revealing her lively social life at the age of fifteen, and exploring her courtship with her tutor and future-husband, Levi Thaxter. This letter was composed three years after the earliest letter Thaxter is known.....
![Letter of Invitation to Sam Houston]. John Willis](/pictures/thumb/2806_1.jpg?v=1560463186)
An intriguing letter to Sam Houston as a U.S. Senator, from a party of Virginia democrats, docketed by Houston. This is an ostensibly routine invitation to a July 28th and 29th 1848 mass meeting at the Orange Co., Virginia Court House, written by several prominent Virginia Democrats. Though the real.....