Identifying the Unidentified

Kathleen Major has been volunteering in the Manuscripts Department at AAS for several years. She worked at AAS from 1976 to 1984 and was Keeper of Manuscripts for a portion of that time. After leaving the Society to care for her children, Kathy worked at the Gale Free Library in Holden, most recently as head of ...

Identifying the Unidentified, Part IV

Over the past few weeks, we've been featuring posts by former AAS intern Lucia Ferguson (Smith College) about her experience identifying an unidentified diary (Part I, Part II, and Part III).  This week she shares her concluding thoughts. Researching the Martin family proved mysterious and frustrating. And still, as I researched the lives Henry’s family lived ...

Identifying the Unidentified, Part III

Last week, former AAS intern Lucia Ferguson brought us through some of Henry Martin's (a previously unidentified diarist) daily routines.  Read on to learn about his experience as a soldier in the Civil War, and a miner in a goldmine. After working as a farmhand in his teenage years, Henry served in the Civil War. He ...

Indentifying the Unidentified, Part II

Last week we featured a post by former AAS intern Lucia Ferguson (Smith College) about her journey into an unidentified diary.  Read on to learn more about the diarist's day to day life as he recorded it in his diary. During 1867, when he kept this diary, Henry made his living by selling pictures and books, ...

Identifying the Unidentified, Part I

Former AAS intern Lucia Ferguson (Smith College) worked with a manuscript collection of unidentified diaries.  Her charge?  Identify the diarist.  Lucia was very successful with one particular volume, which she discovered belonged to a young man named Henry Martin.  Although no last name was listed anywhere in the volume, a poem from the diarist’s sweetheart ...