This double-entry ledger from Fairfield County, Connecticut — probably Greenwich or Norwalk — chronicles barter, cash, and credit transactions of a sawmill, gristmill, horse-leasing operation from 1793 to 1819. The owner may have been Robert Brush.

Katherine and Kenneth Irey

Born in 1908 to Louis and Sarah Kessel Burgett, Katherine grew up on the family farm outside of Oquawka, Illinois. In 1924 her parents purchased their own farm in Monmouth, which they later lost due to the devastating impact of the Depression on agriculture, and it was there that she first met her future husband, Kenneth Monroe Irey, a student at Monmouth College. The newlyweds moved to New Jersey in 1931 where Kenneth was transferred for work. As a chemical engineer, Kenneth enjoyed a successful career and comfortably supported his wife and two children. Retiring in 1970, he and Katherine spent their later years pursuing two passions: traveling and bird-watching. Kenneth and Katherine’s eldest daughter, June Irey Guild, spent most of her adult life in Massachusetts where she has married twice, raised six children, and operated her own business. During her retirement years, June focused on preserving her family’s history by collecting letters and recoding family narratives.

The Burgett-Irey Family Papers chronicle the changes that many twentieth-century American families experienced as the nation descended into an economic depression, entered into a world war, and emerged as one of the most powerful countries in the world. The collection, which will continue to grow, includes approximately 65 letters between Katherine Burgett Irey and her family. Most of the letters exchange family updates, particularly precious after Katherine relocated to New Jersey. Among the earliest letters is an account of Katherine and Kenneth’s first meeting described as “fast work,” since he asked her out on the spot. Also included are autobiographical writings by Kenneth describing his cross-country trip to California in 1927 and a brief history of his life and career.

These three accounting volumes of Monson, Massachusetts physicians David and Marshall Calkins encompass the period May 1848–December 1855. Medically, these volumes reflect a growing understanding of the human body and the analysis and treatment of its ailments. Additionally, these account books reflect a period of growing prosperity for Monson through the birth of stream powered milling industries.

Hardware store merchant, stove dealer, and tinsmith from Haverhill, Massachusetts. Daybooks include documentation of customers, items purchased, prices paid, and transactions relating to Currier’s rag trade.

Account book of Selectmen of the town of Enfield, Massachusetts from when it was incorporated in 1816 to 1846. Includes expenses of the town and orders drawn for services such as ringing the bell, supporting paupers, building coffins, or providing a yard to serve as a pound. The recorded names of many townspeople represent the full spectrum of society-tradespeople, laborers, paupers, town officers, and wealthy townsmen.

Nina, Smoky, Chuck, Janis (Smoky and Nina on bikes)

A wave of experimentation in communal living in New England reached a peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with dozens of communities spread across the landscape of western Massachusetts and Vermont. Nina Finestone joined the Johnson Pastures in Guilford , Vermont, in 1969, however after the main house there went up in flames on April 16, 1970, killing four people, she joined a number of its residents who moved to the nearby Montague Farm in Montague, Massachusetts. Nina married a fellow Montague farmer, Daniel Keller, and the couple moved to Wendell in 1980.

Providing exceptional visual documentation of life at Johnson Pasture, the Montague Farm, and Wendell Farm between 1969 and 1990, the Finestone collection is centered on the lives and family of Daniel and Nina Keller. All images were taken by Roy Finestone, Nina’s father, with a medium format camera using color transparency film.

2013

First prize: Ken Lefebvre (2013)

“‘A Wise Conservator’: The Life and Times of Henry Hill Goodell.”

Honorable mention: Daniel Stein (2013)

“David versus the State: Refusal to Serve in the Israeli Defense Forces during the Lebanon War and the First Intifada: 1982-1993.”

2012

First prize: Justine DeCamillis (2012)

“Liminal Space and Identities: The Transitional and Juxtaposition of Opposites within the Prologue, Bisclavret and Lanval of Marie de France’s Lais.”

Honorable mention: Peter Arsenault (2012)

“Poetic Liminality in the Middle Ages: The Case of Thomas Hoccleve.”

2011

First prize: Christopher Russell (2010)

“A Tale of Two Cities: How the Government Caused and Maintained Racial Inequality in Oakland, ca. 1945-1970.”

Honorable mention: Marjorie Connolly (2011)

“Anarchy to Activism: Italian Immigrant Politics During Boston’s Great Molasses Flood.”

Honorable mention: Sarah Goldstein (2012)

“Cambodian Immigration and the Cambodian Crisis Committee”

2010

First prize: Paul Kinsman

“Platonic and Pythagorean Ratios in the Formal Analysis of 15th Century Music”

Honorable mention: Vanessa De Santis

“The Emergence of a Class of Informed, Working Italian Immigrant Women in the Early Twentieth Century“

Honorable mention: Austin Powell

“Woman-As-Witch
An Analysis of Gender in Pre to Early Modern Society

2009

First prize: Name removed upon request

Honorable mention: Amy Couto

“Treaty of Canandaigua: The political necessity of peace

Honorable mention: Phil Jensen

“We are history, we are legend: Perspectives of American volunteers in the Spanish Civil War

1929 cookbook

Assembled by Lynnette E. Foucher, this collection consists chiefly of cookbooks produced by food companies between the 1920s-1970s. These cookbooks reflect the changing role of women in the home as well as new food trends and innovative technology. Taken together, the collection offers a glimpse into the way meal preparation changed in the U.S. during the second half of the twentieth century and how this change transformed the way we eat today.

A native of Salisbury, Massachusetts, Robert Fowler (b.1805) was a prosperous shipbuilder and merchant with a trade extending from Nova Scotia to the Gulf South. He and his wife Susan Edwards, whom he married in 1830, had at least four children.

Kept by Robert Fowler between 1831 and 1854, the volume includes both diary entries (primarily 1841-1846) and accounts. With occasional commentary on local political matters, commerce, weather, and family matters, the diary is largely a record of Fowler’s spiritual concerns and his wrestling with doctrinal matters and the relationship of religion and daily life. An ardent temperance man, he commented on religious topics ranging from the Millerite movement to the resurrection, salvation, and the duty of prayer.

In 1841, George H. Gilbert and Charles A. Stevens formed a partnership to manufacture broadcloth and cloaking in Ware, Massachusetts. Ten years later, the partnership dissolved and each partner carried a part of the business into separate establishments. The newly formed George H. Gilbert Company continued making high-grade woolen flannels, for which it developed a national reputation, until 1930.

Records, consisting of correspondence, financial records and cash books, construction contracts, sales lists, production records, and sample books, document the operation of Gilbert and Stevens and later the Gilbert Company for almost a century. The labor accounts (1851-1930), document the phases of the varying ethnic composition of the workforce — Irish, French-Canadian, and eventually Polish — well as the family orientation of the mills.