On December 5, 1861, sixteen-year-old Louisa Russell of Greenfield, Massachusetts, wrote to her mother, also a Louisa Russell. A previous letter to her mother mentioned family in Washington, D.C., and the Civil War, then in its first year, but this letter centered on domestic news. Although feeling “used up entirely” after that day’s visit to the dentist to have seven teeth filled, the younger Louisa instead focused much of her letter on a more pleasant subject, recalling her recent Thanksgiving celebration and all the good things she consumed during the course of the day.

“All the scholars were gone except Zelia Hodge & I so we did not get up till nearly eight oclock,” she wrote. “Had for breakfast broiled chicken and potatoes coffee and bread & butter. At half past ten we went to church Mr Deane preached a beautiful sermon and then we came home to dinner. For dinner we had for first course turkey and cranberry sauce squash & mashed potatoes. For second course, mince, apple pudding, & squash pies and whips.”

Louisa’s attire clearly privileged form over function, and indulging in a Thanksgiving feast left her feeling a bit constricted. “I wore my velvet basque and silk dress and you know it was always considerably tight and so after eating all that I went up stairs and unhooked all my clothes and ‘took it easy’ as they say.” Unfortunately, Louisa was not allowed to take it easy for long. “I was sitting in this condition when aunt Hannah came in and said that I must come down in the parlor.” With some reluctance and “much difficulty I hooked the skirt of my dress and put my calico sacque and went down in the parlor. They laughed at me considerably but I did not see the use of being uncomfortable on Thanksgiving day.” No doubt Louisa would have appreciated the comfy sweatpants option we enjoy today.

Louisa’s snug clothing did not preclude additional noshing later in the day, however, which she described for her brother Nathaniel. After a somewhat uncomfortable walk, she spent a pleasant evening at her Aunt Mary’s. “There were quite a number of folks there and we played games and had singing and music and had a very nice time generally. For refreshments (I suppose Nat would like to hear) we had wine jelly, rum jelly, cake, coffee and whips we came home about half past eleven very much pleased.”

Like many of us who hope to sleep in after a full Thanksgiving, Louisa “went to bed with the vain wish of not being waked until ten or eleven oclock the next day.”

Louisa Russell (1845-1893) worked as a clerk in the Treasury Department in Washington, D.C. (1865-1869), before marrying fellow Treasury Department employee James Winne Whelpley (1834-1918) in October 1871.

Louisa’s Thanksgiving letter to her mother is part of the Whelpley Family Papers in the Manuscript Division. This collection will be of interest to researchers studying Louisa’s grandfather, New Hampshire Supreme Court chief justice William Merchant Richardson, and the French family of New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. Louisa’s maternal uncles, who both married Richardson sisters, were Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin Brown French and his brother Henry Flagg French, the father of sculptor Daniel Chester French. The Whelpley collection was donated to the Library of Congress in 2015 by former District of Columbia Superior Court judge Mary Ellen Abrecht (1945-2018), great-granddaughter of Louisa Russell and James W. Whelpley.

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First, the letterhead. This is the corporate stationery of a Boston-based shoe manufacturer called Graham & Company, founded by an ambitious Irish immigrant named John R. Graham. If you can read his messy handwriting, you’ll see his signature at the bottom of the letter. Graham was 44 years old in 1891 and a Civil War veteran who ran a factory with his brother in Quincy, Massachusetts. The boots and shoes manufactured there were sold at the Graham & Company shop in downtown Boston. It must have attracted a well-heeled clientele. The customer being addressed here was U.S. Navy Secretary Benjamin F. Tracy.

This was an era of boom and bust for American businesses. Economic crises were called “panics,” and a serious panic (like the one in 1893) could cause everything from stock market crashes and bank runs to the mass bankruptcy of major railroads. But in a time of unprecedented consumer choice and economic uncertainty, Graham & Company thrived. A decade after the Panic of 1893, the business had actually expanded. Ads in elite northeastern prep school newspapers trumpeted the “Graham Shoe” as “the LEADING COLLEGE SHOE,” and company boosters claimed Graham Shoes were known across the Atlantic Seaboard. In fact, the company thrived so much that Graham left Boston altogether, transforming himself into a railroad and real estate magnate and relocating to Bangor, Maine.

Maybe the kitten helped. Describing similar commercial ephemera in Australia, Andrew J. May, Stephen Banham, and Christine Eid have called decorative letterheads like this one “paper ambassadors.” Carefully placed engravings of kittens in boots, bustling modern factories, or glistening new automobiles, they write, served as “instrument[s] of public relations,” presenting idealized depictions of reality or showcasing the identities and ideologies of their creators. As consumer culture grew more complex, more sophisticated corporate identities began appearing in commercial ephemera. In this case the symbolism is straightforward: a shoemaker showing us a shoe, not far off from a fake boot hanging in front of a traditional cobbler’s shop. But the inclusion of a kitten pleading directly with the consumer does hint at some cleverness to come, as corporate branding grew into the multibillion-dollar industry we know today.

The kitten tells us one other thing, about the changing relationships between humans and animals in an urbanizing country. As Katherine C. Grier writes, cats were ubiquitous in Victorian-era American cities, though they often served as free-ranging mousers rather than pampered household pets. Even so, the era saw the emergence of a new cat fancy culture. Cultural elites like Mark Twain and Ralph Waldo Emerson were bringing cats into their homes, and Boston was playing host to the nation’s very first cat show, in 1878. Meanwhile, as reform-minded public health officials began clearing city streets of their hordes of “half-starved feral cats,” a new class of animal welfare activist countered, demanding humane treatment and a painless death for any animals that needed to be euthanized. In a sense, Grier writes, “restoring the status of pet to as many animals as possible.”

Unbeknownst to John R. Graham, the kitten in this boot was an innovator.  It charted the progress of the Industrial Revolution and pointed the way toward an era when corporate brands became unavoidable while offering us the comfort of our household cats. Plus, it’s cute.

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“Graham & Company…” Edward M. Graham, John R. Graham (1847-1915) and the Bangor Railway & Electric Co. (New York: The Newcomen Society, 1950), 7-8.

“panics…” Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York: Norton, 2011), 393.

“company boosters…” Graham Shoe Co. advertisement, The Phillipian, Andover, Massachusetts, October 17, 1900, page 4.

“…commercial ephemera” Andrew J. May, Stephen Banham, and Christine Eid, “Paper Ambassadors: Letterheads and the Iconography of Urban Modernity,” Provenance: The Journal of Public Record Office Victoria 13 (2014), 44-46.

“Grier writes…” Katherine C. Grier, Pets in America: A History (New York: Harcourt, 2006), 45, 48-49, 218, 279-282.

In December 1898, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris, formally concluding the Spanish-American War. Following its defeat and the loss of its overseas colonies, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States for $20 million. In early 1899, fighting resumed, this time between the First Philippine Republic and the United States, escalating into the brutal guerilla conflict known as the Philippine-American War. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt declared a policy of general amnesty and proclaimed the Philippines an American colony, despite continued resistance in the southern Moro Province until 1913.

Capturing the tensions of this transitional period, Apolinario Mabini (1864-1903), who had been the prime minister of the First Philippine Republic in 1899, issued a revolutionary manifesto in 1902 outlining his continued support for Filipino self-determination. Reflecting the enduring influence of Mabini’s philosophy, Manuel Quezon (1878-1944) kept a facsimile of the manifesto while serving as the resident commissioner of the Philippines. In this role, Quezon served as a non-voting member of the United States House of Representatives from 1909 to 1916 where he lobbied for Philippine independence. His efforts to promote bilaterial cooperation, both in this role and later as president of the Philippines, aligned with the ideals in Mabini’s manifesto, suggesting Mabini’s likely influence on Quezon. The version of the manifesto housed in the Library of Congress is a facsimile sent from the office of Manuel Quezon to James A. Roberston, an archivist and historian of the Philippines. In 1916 Robertson donated the facsimile to the Library of Congress.

The manifesto was composed by Mabini while in Guam, where he was held in exile by American colonial authorities. In the manifesto Mabini outlined his vision for an independent Philippines, stating his goal to “find out in our past the most useful lessons for the present and the future.” Mabini reflected on his negotiations with American officials during the brief existence of the First Philippine Republic, emphasizing his desire to reach a mutually beneficial compromise with the United States. He maintained that it was possible to establish a political system shaped by American ideals without undermining the legitimate political representation of Filipinos, and he called for “mutual concessions” between Filipinos and Americans.

In the manifesto, Mabini expressed his desire to integrate democratic principles into a new Philippine government. After discussing his apprehensions with then Governor General William H. Taft (later United States president), Mabini recorded Taft’s assurance that American sovereignty in the Philippines would mirror that of other global powers. Taft noted that “the only difference [being] that the Americans, having been educated in a free government, will try to give a more liberal form to their notions of sovereignty.” Recognizing the irony in this claim, Mabini concluded that “it was more prudent for a government not to openly oppose the desires of the governed people,” reaffirming his commitment to popular sovereignty. Mabini fervently believed in the need for genuine independence in the Philippines, free from false pretenses or marginal political representation for Filipinos. He asserted that his primary loyalty was to the Filipino people, with a mission to dismantle the remnants of Spanish imperial rule and to “build a new one [government] more adequate to the real necessities of the Filipinos and more flexible to the changes or reforms their civilization would require.”

While he praised elements of American democratic ideals, Mabini was critical of the anti-democratic system the United States sought to impose on the Philippines, regardless of its liberal intentions. In his view, a truly democratic Philippine government would be elected by the people and shaped by American political values without the burden of colonial control. Although he did not live to see Philippine independence realized, Mabini’s nuanced approach to relations between the United States and the Philippines would influence later Filipino politicians, particularly those involved in the negotiations over Philippine independence during the interwar period.

Regardless of Manuel Quezon’s intentions for the manifesto, the presence of Mabini’s work in the Manuscript Division suggests its historic and symbolic importance for Quezon during his residency in Washington. Thus, the dual history of this document, both as a revolutionary text and a political artifact, reflects its enduring influence on Filipino political thought. The political theories and historical analysis raised by Mabini were not only foundational to the construction of the American colonial government in the Philippines, but their legacy influenced generations of thinkers, politicians, and revolutionaries, shaping the basis of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines for the remainder of the twentieth century.

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“Spain ceded the Philippines . . .” “Treaty of Paris, 1898” Encyclopædia Britannica, accessed August 14, 2025.

“a policy of general amnesty . . .” Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), 113-118.

“In this role . . .” Manuel Quezon, The Good Fight (London: Appleton-Century, 1946), 149-150.

“a facsimile . . .” “Obituary: James Alexander Robertson,” American Antiquarian Society, 9.

“The manifesto . . .” Cesar A. Majul, Mabini and the Philippine Revolution (Quezon City: University of the Philippines, 1960), 436.

“an independent Philippines . . .” Apolinario Mabini, “Manifesto regarding the American occupation and the Philippine insurrection,” Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, 78.

“He maintained . . .” Mabini, “Manifesto,” 87.

“Taft noted . . .” Mabini, “Manifesto,” 84.

“reaffirming his commitment . . .” Mabini, “Manifesto,” 84.

“dismantle the remnants . . .” Mabini, “Manifesto,” 11-12.

“While he praised . . .” Julian Go, American Empire and the Politics of Meaning (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 1-4.

“In his view . . .” Mabini, “Manifesto,” 17.

“their legacy . . .” Majul, Mabini, 465-470.

Yair Qedar is a filmmaker and social activist, specializing in literary biographies. He produces and directs documentary films on Jewish writers and poets, creating a cinematic language that uses archives, animation, and music.

Made at the Library is an event series highlighting works inspired by and emerging from research at the Library of Congress. Featuring authors, artists, and other creators in conversation with Library experts, this series takes a deep dive into the process of working with the Library’s collections.

This event will take place in person on Thursday, October 16, 2025 from 6:00pm-8:30pm EDT in the Mumford Room (LM649), James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave SE, Washington DC 20504.

The event is free, but tickets are required, and there may be special restrictions. Click here for more information and to secure your ticket. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. 

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS: Please request ADA accommodations at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov

Do you want more stories like this? Then subscribe to Unfolding History – it’s free!

Made at the Library is an event series highlighting works inspired by and emerging from research at the Library of Congress. Featuring authors, artists, and other creators in conversation with Library experts, this series takes a deep dive into the process of working with the Library’s collections.

The event will take place online only on Thursday, September 18, 2025, 1:00pm-2:00pm ET. Register for the program here.

Please request ADA accommodations at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov.

In June 1775, after news of Lexington and Concord reached London, Lord Dartmouth, Britain’s secretary of state for the colonies, ordered the General Post Office in London to intercept letters from the packet boats that shuttled the mail between Great Britain and the American colonies. He and his successor, Lord George Germain, kept the practice going until November 1775, when the war shut the packets down. In a “secret office” at the post office, skilled workers selected letters, carefully broke their wax seals, copied whole letters or selected excerpts, seamlessly sealed the letters back up, forwarded the copies to Lord Dartmouth’s office, and then sent the originals on to their destinations quickly so that their recipients would not guess that they had been opened.

Today the copies and excerpts made at the post office are at Britain’s National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office), while copies of the copies are held in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. The Library’s copies were made by its Foreign Copying Program, which for more than a century has been systematically locating and copying documentation of American history in international archives. While digitization has made some of these copies redundant, the copies made by the Foreign Copying Program remain valuable for researchers on this side of the Atlantic. A guide to the Foreign Copying Program records from Great Britain was recently produced by the Manuscript Division.

An unsigned letter from Philadelphia to an uncertain recipient stated, “I expect every Day to hear, that at the great Expense of lives, one Push will be made to drive [British general] Gage from Boston, and to rid the Continent of Enemies. The Petition of the Congress lies before our King, and all is left to His Wisdom & Goodness. May God give Him Wisdom and Tenderness to decide the awful contest . . . you see how unwilling we are to be broken off from England. How happy would we be if the Parliament had the same Tenderness for us.” The petition the anonymous author mentions was probably the conciliatory Olive Branch petition that the second Continental Congress sent to King George III that July.

One year before the Declaration of Independence, this mixture of feelings, and especially a wish for reconciliation, was not unusual. One New Yorker wrote, “I would to God we could remain in Peace, and that an old and happy government was restored, but when we shall see that Day no mortal knows.” Others predicted Americans would favor independence. Henry Hugh Ferguson, in Philadelphia, wrote British naturalist and American sympathizer John Fothergill in London, “I have good authority for assuring you that the Colonies will declare themselves independent of the Crown of Britain next Spring.” Britain was behaving like “a wounded Lyon,” he wrote, but “I still believe the Colonies will not be subdued.”

Even though the postal workers tried to keep their interceptions secret, some writers suspected that their letters had been opened and read by British officials. Those who left their letters unsigned were probably among them. George F. Norton of London wrote William Reynolds of Yorktown, Virginia: “‘tis very much the fashion to pry into all Letters to America, to gather Information for purposes you are well acquainted with.”

Interspersed with the copies and extracts are notes from post office officials themselves. One of them complained that “A very large box by the last New York mail was entirely broke to pieces, so that the Acts of Assembly and other bulky papers it contained were quite loose and the merchants letters in the mail much damaged and defaced by the box which has been often the case.”

According to historian Julie Flavell, Lord Dartmouth’s clandestine polling revealed that the British assaults on Lexington and Concord had created greater consensus where previously there had been more division. One New Yorker wrote, “This City which has long been Cause of Complaint on account of it’s Divisions, seems now to be united more & more every Day, and the Appellations of Whig and Tory will, I doubt not, be wholy forgotten in the general Cause in which all are embarked.”

Today the copies and excerpts are a historical record of American sentiments and of the information-gathering activities of the British government at the start of the Revolutionary War. They also do what primary sources are so good at: They preserve tumultuous events as they were experienced in the moment before anyone knew how it would all turn out.

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“They read Americans’ mail.” Julie Flavell, “Government Interception of Letters from America and the Quest for Colonial Opinion in 1775,” William and Mary Quarterly 58 (April 2001): 403-430.

“That they had been opened…” For Dartmouth’s role see Flavell, “Government Interception,” 407-408; for the date the Post Office began intercepting letters, 403; for the “secret office” and the work of the Post Office clerks, 410-411; for the end of the packet service, 421.

“Made by its Foreign Copying Program…” Great Britain, Colonial Office Records, 1574-1814, Colonial Office (hereafter CO) 5/134, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. The Colonial Office records are in the form of transcripts, photostats, and microfilm. All the letters cited here are on microfilm #11,467. They are also included in a subscription database called Colonial America, available at the Library of Congress, among other libraries. The Foreign Copying Program was also active in France, Spain, Germany, and several other countries.

“Loyalist to patriot to undecided…” Flavell, “Government Interception,” 414, 423.

“Governor Tryon at New York is taken a Prisoner…” Governor [John] Wentworth, Boston, to the Marquess of Rockingham, October 10, 1775, CO 5/134, 117-118.

“The Izards were committed to the Americans…” Mrs. Anne DeLancey, Union Hill [New York] to Mrs. [Alice DeLancey] Izard, Tower Hill, [London], October 31, [1775], CO 5/134, 164.

“I expect every Day to hear…” Unsigned, Philadelphia, to the Rev. Dr. Ewing or to Dr. Hugh Williamson, October 3, 1775, CO 5/134, 111.

“I would to God we could remain in Peace…” Unsigned, New York, to Isaac Wilkins, October 7, 1775, CO 5/134, 96.

“A wounded Lyon…” Henry Hugh Ferguson, Philadelphia, to Dr. John Fothergill, October 2, 1775, CO 5/134, 123.

“‘Tis very much the fashion…” George F. Norton, London, to William Reynolds, York Town, VA, November 23, 1775, CO 5/134, 72.

“A very large box by the last New York mail…” [Anthony Todd] General Post Office, [London], to John Pownall, July 1, 1773, CO 5/134, 137.

“This City which has long been Cause of Complaint…” Richard Yates, quoted by Flavell, “Intercepted Letters,” 411. This letter is from a separate cache of intercepted letters in the Dartmouth Manuscripts in the Staffordshire Record Office; see Flavell, “Intercepted Letters,” 403. Similar sentiments appear in the letters at the Colonial Office.

Sometimes accomplished scientists feel secure enough in their positions that they branch out into riskier topics, areas of research they may have been reluctant to share with colleagues in their younger days. Coblentz decided to take his chance on psychic phenomena. It was a topic that had interested him since childhood, when his father told him of an encounter with a “fortune teller” who accurately described “his home surroundings, e.g., the kind of house he lived in; and foretold how many times he would be married and how many children he would have.” The young Coblentz was hooked.

As a scientist, Coblentz kept meticulous, lively laboratory notebooks. One of those notebooks, which accompanied him on an expedition to observe a solar eclipse on Sumatra, includes scientific data and touristy detail in equal measure. On one page he obsessed over the failure of his equipment to accurately measure coronal radiation at the moment of the eclipse’s totality. On another, he’s a happy traveler in Kyoto, Japan, cautiously eating something he can’t identify: “rectangular sections of a whitish substance (Flour? Cheese?)” It was tofu.

So in 1910, when Coblentz turned his attention to psychic phenomena, he did so with experimental instincts already well honed and a professional’s understanding of the importance of careful documentation. The spark was an unexpected invitation by a group of physicians and other “serious minded people” to their “trumpet circle,” a kind of séance led by a medium who claimed the ability to channel voices of the dead through a trumpet-shaped cone. Coblentz, charmed by their “frequent flattering references” to his own “latent psychic powers,” decided to attend and record his observations. He did so without half measures. He joined the American Society for Psychic Research and attended an annual meeting of the American Spiritualist Association, collected “all the advertisements I could find” on magicians’ paraphernalia, chatted with the magicians themselves, and pored over both published research and popular books that claimed to unmask “how ‘perhaps’ it is done.” As he worked, he carefully recorded his findings.

Coblentz asserted a “mainly utilitarian” object in these investigations, considering, for instance, how useful a police detective might find the power of clairvoyance. He framed psychic phenomena in scientific terms: The clairvoyant mind was as sensitive as a photoelectric cell, the “stimulus that excites clairvoyance” perhaps “vibrational” in the manner of “incoming radiant energy from the galaxies.” And yet, he felt, at times psychic phenomena seemed beyond the boundaries of scientific inquiry, their nature so little known that perhaps he lacked even the basic knowledge needed to test them. When, for example, he witnessed a spiritual materialization, with “ectoplastic fingers, hands and arms, extruded through the fabric of a curtain,” he realized that what he had seen seemed “preposterous.” But he felt the more reasonable conclusion was to accept such phenomena as “belonging to an unexplained reality” rather than denying they had occurred.

Despite his careful notetaking, most of what Coblentz observed would be impossible to reproduce precisely. From his deep conversations with impressively trustworthy mediums, to the voices of spirits and their ectoplasmic forms, to stunning demonstrations of clairvoyance and telekinesis, and even Coblentz’s brief experience serving as a medium himself, you maybe had to be there and see it for yourself. But there was one physical product of those investigations, one uniquely well suited for inclusion in a manuscript collection: pages of automatic writing. And Coblentz saved a small pile of it.

Believers assert that automatic writing is produced by spirits who take control of a human hand and cause it to move without its owner’s conscious control. Coblentz was normally right-handed, but his automatic writing emerged from his left. “The hand and arm,” he wrote, “swinging from the shoulder, displayed a will of its own and often imitated the writing by making a series of helical scrolls upon which would be superposed fairly legible letters and words.” Sometimes the spirits wrote in German script, or inserted French-language phrases. And sometimes Coblentz reported “flashes of light” sparking from his fingertips, wrist, forearm, or elbow as he wrote. Researchers can see the result, if not the process: pages of loopy writing with more carefully written translations in the margins: “He says he has been here before,” “mother says: I am glad I can do this much,” “I am glad to write,” “Jacob Coblentz… I am here.” On one sheet, written on the official letterhead of the Department of Commerce and Labor, is the name of physicist and Smithsonian Secretary Joseph Henry, who had passed away nearly four decades earlier. We can touch this evidence, at least. But does it prove anything?

It’s clear from his unpublished memoir that, on balance, Coblentz did find his observations convincing. Still, ever the good scientist, he laid out a summary of his conclusions, which suggest that he viewed his work as contributing to an emergent science of metaphysics, “a part of the reality” researchers must seek to understand. And would it have been so hard to imagine science eventually bringing the spiritual world within its grasp? Coblentz, after all, had spent his boyhood on a farm without electricity. Things can change quickly. Researchers, however, can judge for themselves whether the documentation Coblentz left behind stands the test of time.

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“an encounter…” William W. Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life of a Researcher,” 1949, page 20, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“On another…” William W. Coblentz, “Solar Eclipse; 1926 Expedition to Sumatra” journal, entries of January 14, 1926, and November 27, 1925, box 1, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“He joined…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” page 276, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“He framed…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” pages 274-275, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“he felt…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” page 281, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“Coblentz reported…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” page 286, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“On one sheet…” Automatic writing sheets, February 3, February 10, February 17, and February 24, 1915, box 2, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“summary…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” page 294, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

“boyhood…” Coblentz, “Chapters in the Life,” pages 67, 98, box 3, William W. Coblentz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Coblentz quoted from Man the Unknown (1935) by Alexis Carrel.

Henry Clay’s period as a diplomat was short compared with his long career representing Kentucky in the United States House and Senate. He is probably best known as the powerful, longtime House speaker who transformed the office into the authoritative position it remains today. Clay was also a serial, unsuccessful presidential candidate, representing the Whig party. As Speaker of the House and a “War Hawk,” he supported the War of 1812, whose conclusion he helped to bring about at Ghent. Clay’s extensive papers are in the Manuscript Division.

William Crawford of Georgia was, like Henry Clay, a diplomat and a statesman who made several unsuccessful tries at the presidency. After he returned home from France he served in the cabinets of James Madison and James Monroe as secretary of war and secretary of the treasury, respectively. Clay and Crawford were friends and colleagues in the U.S. Senate, and while Clay was in Europe, he kept in close touch with Crawford, relaying news he received from the United States, updating him on the commissioners’ progress, and reporting on what he saw around him in Europe. The Manuscript Division has a small collection of Crawford’s papers. These include photostats, made in 1913, of eight of these letters.

In October 1814, Clay learned about the burning of Washington two months earlier. He wrote Crawford: “What does wound me to the very soul, is, that a set of pirates and incendiaries should have been permitted to pollute our soil, conflagrate our Capital, and return unpunished to their ships!” He also reported to Clay about the American commissioners’ meetings with their British counterparts, who demanded rights to impress American sailors, navigate on the Mississippi River, and reserve land for their American Indian allies.

As the commissioners worked on an end to the War of 1812, the events of the Napoleonic wars swirled around them. On July 2, 1814, Clay speculated on the possibility that Britain would soon occupy the “low countries,” which included Belgium, where they were meeting. “What think you of our being surrounded by a British garrison?” he asked Crawford. The situation would become even more dangerous in a way that, as Clay reported to Crawford on March 23, 1815, “the mind is not sufficiently tranquilized to speculate on.” He was referring to the return to power of Napoleon.

After the American and British negotiators signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, Henry Clay left for Paris. Then, in late February 1815, Napoleon escaped from his exile on Elba, gathered an army, and began marching toward Paris. Clay was there to witness Napoleon’s arrival in the city just before he left for London to work on the commercial treaty. He describes his feelings about this event in two letters to Crawford, written from London. In one of these, an unpublished letter dated March 30, 1815, he exclaims: “What a wonderful man the Emperor is! How he mocks all human calculations and arrangements!” He worried about the prospects for peace in Europe, writing; “I confess I do not see how the Emperor is to keep out of war. His military must be employed, and he must do something to justify the high expectations of national pride and vanity.”

The 1829 letter, which is unpublished, is from February 7, when Clay was secretary of state and Andrew Jackson, his political enemy, had just been elected president but had not yet taken office (inaugurations took place in March in the nineteenth century). Writing again to Crawford he speculates gloomily on the consequences of Jackson’s election “upon the present generation and posterity” and describes how it has filled him “with awful apprehensions.”

One of the unpublished letters is missing its first, and possibly other pages. It has no date, but it is signed by William H. Crawford and a note on the last page shows that it was addressed to Henry Clay. Since it originally belonged, like the rest of this group of letters, to Crawford’s descendants, it is probably a draft, rather than the version Crawford sent to Clay—if he sent it. Internal evidence shows that it probably dates from June 1815, when Adams, Clay, and Gallatin were finishing the commercial treaty and preparing to come home. During this period Bayard was sick (he would die later that year) and on board ship, waiting to leave. Crawford writes: “He has been immured in the ship, without the probability of his leaving it, until he is landed in the United States. If it was improper that the vessel should be detained longer than the 1^st of May for his convenience, surely it ought not now to be detained to his annoyance and at the risque of his ultimate recovery. To these considerations ought to be added, the influence that his political sentiments have had upon his conduct, which I am sure you will readily comprehend.” Crawford names Bayard on the last page, making clear that he is the sick man on the ship. Crawford outlines the delays in finishing the treaty, and the arrangements for his and Clay’s departure for the United States, about which both were anxious.

These letters, which will be added to the Manuscript Division’s Crawford papers, are a valuable source of information about the diplomats that negotiated the end of the war of 1812, the career of Henry Clay, and the age of Napoleon.

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“…unpublished.“ The unpublished letters are: Henry Clay to William H. Crawford, October 25, 1814, November 24, 1814; March 30, 1815; February 7, 1829, and an incomplete, undated later from Crawford to Clay. These are not in The Papers of Henry Clay, edited by James F. Hopkins (University of Kentucky Press, 1959-1992) or “Letters Relating to the Negotiations at Ghent, 1812-1814,” American Historical Review 20 (October 1914):108-129. Also unpublished is Albert Gallatin to William H. Crawford, October 19, 1814, which is not in The Writings of Albert Gallatin, edited by Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1879), or in The Papers of Albert Gallatin (Philadelphia: Historic Publications, 1969), a microfilm edition of Gallatin papers in various repositories. Jonathan Russell’s letter to William H. Crawford, October 17, 1814, is published in “Letters Relating to the Negotiations.” For the work of the commissioners at Ghent and London see: Robert Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991) and James Traub, John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit (New York: Basic Books, 2016).

“photostats…“ The eight photostats are part of a larger group of photostats in the Crawford papers. When the photostats were made in 1913 the originals belonged to Crawford’s descendants. The Crawford papers also contain his journal from 1813, which describes his trip to Europe and his meeting with Napoleon on November 14, 1813. The journal has been published as  a separate volume, “The Journal of William H. Crawford,” edited by Daniel Chauncey Knowlton, Smith College Studies in History 11 (October 1925).

“He wrote Crawford…“ Henry Clay to William H. Crawford, Ghent, October 17, 1814.

“two letters…“ March 23 and 30, 1815. For Clay’s presence in Paris as Napoleon arrived see Remini, Henry Clay, 126. Another witness to Napoleon’s march was Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, with whom she reunited in Paris after traveling there alone from Russia. During her journey she encountered Napoleon’s troops. See Michael O’Brien, Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).

Summer is a time for vacations and the sharing of vacation photos. So I am sharing a rather curious photograph, taken in summer 1887, which caught my eye in the F. Holland Day Papers in the Manuscript Division. If it wasn’t for the inscription, “To my very good friend Fred Holland Day. Souvenir of my first summer vacation in U. S. A. Lynn, Aug. 19, ’87. Raul Rezende de Carvalho,” written on the back of the photo, one might never guess that this man was on vacation.

Raul Rezende de Carvalho served as Brazilian consul in Boston, Massachusetts, and evidently spent at least part of his first American summer vacation in Lynn, Massachusetts, located on the Atlantic coast just a few miles north of Boston. Judging from the photograph, he doesn’t seem to have gotten the hang of relaxing in a hammock. Even accounting for the formal attire typical of the period, Carvalho, dressed in a hat, vest, and jacket with a pocket square, looks more like someone taking a quick glance at the newspaper before heading off to the office. Hopefully he was more comfortable than he appears in the picture. The photograph seems to depict a failed attempt at a laid-back attitude. Whether or not the humor was intended at the time, today there is certainly a comical aspect to the scene. The mundane realism of laundry hanging on the clothesline in the background adds another amusing detail to this image of a man in a suit and hat reading in a hammock. The Raul Rezende de Carvalho file in the F. Holland Day Papers offers scant information about him and nothing more relating to his first vacation in the United States. An 1888 itinerary for R. R. Carvalho in the same folder as this photograph indicates that he spent the next summer traveling through Europe.

This quirky photo is just a sample of the unique and interesting items contained in the papers of photographer and publisher F. Holland Day (1864-1933), who was part of the American Arts and Crafts movement in the 1890s. He cofounded the publishing firm Copeland and Day and was a leading figure in the pictorialism movement, which emphasized artistic aspects of photography.  A major feature of the collection is Day’s extended correspondence with a wide-ranging group of people, including photographers, authors, artists, clients, merchants, and friends, which offers details about life and events in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. And, as in many collections from this period, there is also some hair, a common memento before people had photographs to help them save memories. Learn more about the F. Holland Day Papers through the collection finding aid, available online.

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Dawn Day Biehler is associate professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is author of Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats and articles about mosquitoes, green space, residential space, and environmental justice in Baltimore.

Made at the Library is an event series highlighting works inspired by and emerging from research at the Library of Congress. Featuring authors, artists, and other creators in conversation with Library experts, this series takes a deep dive into the process of working with the Library’s collections.

The event took place online only on Tuesday, August 12, 2025, 12:00pm-1:00pm EST. Watch the program here:

NOTE TO PARTICIPANTS: Please request ADA accommodations at least five business days in advance by contacting (202) 707-6362 or ada@loc.gov.

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