1754-1801

Header Record

Title: Stamp Act Congress: 22 letters and documents by members [decimalized]

GLC02503

1779-1950

Header Record

Title: American statesmen & public servants: 40 letters & docs [decimalized]

GLC02504

1860/12/20

Charleston Mercury, fl. 1860-1861

Broadside

Title: The Union is dissolved! [Charleston Mercury, Extra Ed.]

Docketed on verso with contemporary and (apparently post-war) note.

GLC02688

1863

Currier & Ives

Print

Title: The gallant charge of the fifty fourth Massachusetts (colored) Regiment. On the rebel works at Fort Wagner, Morris Island, near Charleston, July 18th, 1863, and death of Colonel Robt. G. Shaw.

Portrays African American soldiers carrying a United States flag which reads "54th Mass" on the stripes section of the flag as they meet a battle line of Confederate troops. There are 2 prints of this image, with different colorization, both are listed as GLC02881.23. For another depiction of this event, refer to GLC00317.02.

GLC02881.23

23 May 1737

Harding, Abraham, fl. 1734-1737

Autograph document signed

Title: [Meeting notification for the Township of New Medford].

All concerned are requested to attend a meeting on the second Wednesday of June at ten o'clock in the morning at which land will be allotted by the proprietors, and to hear how they shall dispose of charges accrued during division of lands. Signed as Clerk.

GLC02891.07

circa 1867

Major, & Knapp Engraving, Manufacturing, & Lithographic Co.

Print

Title: The Room in McLean House

Title continues, "at Appomattox C.H., in which Gen. Lee surrendered to Gen. Grant." Depicts 18 men present, mostly officers in uniform, including Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. Published by the Major & Knapp. Eng. Mfg & Lith Co., 71 Broadway.

GLC02979.01

July 14, 1863

Smith, David V.M., 1823-1863

Header Record

Title: Collection of David V. Smith, D company, 12th regiment, New Jersey, infantry [Decimalized .01-.60]

The correspondence of David V. R. Smith, a Private in the 12th New Jersey Volunteers, includes 59 war-date letters written to his wife, Elizabeth, and his son, Charles Carroll, from Elmer, Salem Co., NJ. Smith's regiment served mostly as pickets and guards. His letters detailed this constant and fatiguing duty. However, he did see battle in two major campaigns: Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Smith suffered from chronically swollen and painful legs which eventually killed him. His leg condition sent him to the hospital in August 1863 where he died on October 10, 1863 from his illness.…

GLC04189

03/31/1862

Kelly, Mary, fl. 1862

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Sarah

She has joined her husband at the hospital. He was wounded in the lower abdomen. The wound appears fatal and he seems resigned to die. She hopes to move him to a better hospital. She comments on her fate and "right hard trouble every spring." [The Kelly's lost a daughter two years ago in the spring and last spring their son died the night before James Kelly shipped out.] She also discusses other wounded. Date written "Monday 31."

GLC04197.25

1840

Barber, John Warner, 1798-1885

Broadside

Title: A History of the Amistad captives...

title continues: "...Being a circumstantial account of the capture of the Spanish Schooner Amistad, by the Africans on board; their Voyage and Capture near Long Island, New York; with Biographical Sketches of each of the surviving Africans. Also, and account of the Trials had on their case, before the District and Circuit Courts of the United States, for the District of Connecticut, &c." Depicts the death of Captain Ramon Ferrer of the Amistad in July of 1839, on a slave trade route from Havana to Principe. A version of this image serves as an inset fold-out for Barber's pamphlet (refer…

GLC04295

14 July 1830

Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Ebenezer Dole

Signed twice (once struck out) by the famous abolitionist editor Garrison to Dole. Was writing to thank Dole for the 100 dollars he sent. Garrison did not know Dole before he sent the money. Speaks of his prison time for libel in Baltimore a month before and compares it to slavery, saying how much better his condition was. Says "Ah! dear sir, how wide the difference!" He goes on to eloquently contrast a free person who is put in prison to a black slave on a plantation. Also says he is shocked that the North does not understand the horrors of slavery, "their prejudices were invincible -…

GLC04516

1865/04 ca.

Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865

Photograph

Title: Lincoln Funeral Car

Lincoln's hearse stands unhitched in front of two brick buildings, decorated with bunting. A sign in the window to the left of the front of the hearse reads "C.S. Earley." A large crowd is gathered on both sides of the street. Ink inscription on recto "Lincoln Funeral Car."

GLC05111.02.0042

1845

Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895

Book

Title: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave : written by himself.

First edition of Douglass's first autobiography. Contains an engraving of Douglass opposite title page. Published at the anti-slavery office.

GLC06117

circa 1926

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Broadside

Title: For the Good of America

NAACP poster listing statistics regarding the 3,436 lynchings that occurred between 1889 and 1922. States "Do you know that the United States is the Only Land on Earth where people are burned at the stake?" Reports that 83 women have been lynched in the United States. Requests that donations are sent to Joel Elias Spingarn, NAACP Treasurer.

GLC06197

1942/05/03

Broadside

Title: Japanese internment broadside

This broadside, printed in Los Angeles, ordered "all persons of Japanese ancestry" to assemble for transport to detention camps. The document gives specific directions to families about what they could take with them-household and personal items limited to "that which can be carried by the individual or family group."

GLC06360

1852 after

Object

Title: "Uncle Tom's Cabin" banner [on cloth]

Red banner with nine scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Textile.

GLC06894

14 January 1959

King, Martin Luther Jr., 1929-1968

Typed document

Title: Typewritten Speech, delivered at Yale

One speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr. January 14, 1959 before the faculty and students at Yale University. The speech is regarding the future of integration. He provides a brief survey of race relations in the past and discusses the roadblocks in place for the desegregation movement. These blocks include; public officials, the Ku Klux Klan, and "white councils." He also outlines the possible solutions and ways that desegregation is being pushed thorough to spite the opposition.

GLC07706

circa 1868

Ku Klux Klan

Autograph letter signed

Title: To Davie Jeems

Threatening a Black office-holder. "Notice/To Jeems, Davie, you must be a good boy...at night I am a Ku Klux sent here to look after you and all the rest of the radicals and make you know your place. I have got my eye on you every day...[T]ell Platt Madison we have, a Box, For him and you. We nail all, radicals up in Boxes and send them away to KKK. There is 200 000 ded men returned to this country to make you and all the rest of the radicals good Democrats and vote right with the white people...no nigger is safe unless he joins the Democratic Club...give all your Friends timely warning…

GLC09090

28 April 1942 - 19 January 1945

Diamond, Sidney, 1922-1945

Header Record

Title: [Collection of WWII letters of Sidney Diamond to Estelle Spero] [decimalized]

Sidney Diamond (1922-1945) enlisted in mid-April 1942, interrupting the chemical engineering degree that he was undertaking at City College. Diamond was sent to the South Pacific in June 1943, where he served as First Lieutenant to the Eighty-Second Chemical Battalion. On January 29th 1945, Diamond was killed by a Japanese knee mortar while acting as a forward observer during an assault on Fort Stotsenburg, north of Manila. Throughout his time in service, Sidney maintained an epistolary correspondence with Estelle Spero, his sweetheart and subsequently fiancée, the letters from which she…

GLC09120

8 May 1944

Diamond, Sidney, 1922-1945

Autograph letter signed

Title: to Estelle Spero

Diamond writes that, as a result of his position as executive officer, he now gives instructions on Japanese weapons. He also comments that, having "fought and worked…side by side with the negro soldiers", he is "nauseated" by the reports of growing trouble in the "negro-white situation" that he has read about in "Time". He states that men from the South, as well as the North, have come to respect and admire the "negro troops": "It is indeed shameful that upon the return of these men, this community of thought and consideration will be shattered by the narrow minded idiots whose revolting…

GLC09120.408

1945

United States. War Finance Division

Poster

Title: 7th war loan/now all together

Government Printing Office. Small color poster promoting the 7th War Loan. The painting by C. C. Beall is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken by Associated Press photographer, Joe Rosenthal, of the second American flag raising by U.S. Marines on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945.

GLC09520.34

08/15/1945

Army Service Command I

Broadside

Title: The New Okinawan, Restricted Extra. [Vol. 1, no. 118 (August 15, 1945)]

Details three points of Japanese surrender.

GLC09546.01

1918

Treidler, Adolph, fl. 1918

Poster

Title: For every fighter a woman worker/ care for her through the YWCA

A precursor to rosie the riveter, this WWI poster shows a young woman factory worker holding a bomb and airplane.

GLC09550

3 June 1943

Williams, LeRoi S., 1919-1943

Autograph letter signed

Title: Letter to the family of LeRoi Williams

Writing from the Tuskegee Institute, LeRoi describes to his family, how his flight training is going, including a recent flight to Chattanooga. On page 5 are diagrams of flying formations he and his classmates are learning. He then tells his mother he hopes she will come to his graduation, promising to pay the expense.

GLC09587.017

1965

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Poster

Title: Register and Vote

One poster entitled, "Register and Vote," dated 1965. Front lists days, times, and locations of voter registration with a bullet point list of reasons citizens must register, indicating "All You Need Is Some Identification--Such As A Utility Bill or Driver's License". Reverse contains photos of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner with the text "These Men Are Martys To the Cause of FREEDOM!" and "In June, 1964 they lost their lives for the RIGHT to REGISTER and VOTE".

GLC09623

1964

Lomax, S.P., fl. 1965

Pamphlet

Title: harlem

This pamphlet has an introduction in German, the rest is in English. The pamphlet is a mix of history and poetic verse describing what Harlem is, and who lives there. This pamphlet also focuses on past riots starting in 1935, and including 1943. It explains the reasons behind the riots in order to set the stage for the demonstrations of 1964, which were happening at the time of the publication.

GLC09643.13