How did that get there? The case of the John Greenleaf Whittier Papers at the Clarke

by Bryan Whitledge

At the Clarke Historical Library, we work diligently to preserve information of the past for future generations of researchers. A major aspect of the preservation of manuscripts and archives is keeping track of documents’ provenance or their “origins, custody, and ownership” as the Society of American Archivists defines it. For instance, the Clarke knows all of the information about how the Senator Robert P. Griffin Papers were transferred to us or that the 1810 edition of La Fontaine’s fables in our holdings is from the library of Father Gabriel Richard, a priest at Saint Anne’s in Detroit who brought the first printing press to Detroit and helped to found the University of Michigan.

But sometimes, the provenance of documents, especially documents that were acquired nearly 60 years ago, before the time of electronic databases and searchable e-mail correspondence, is not as robust as one would hope. Such is the case for the provenance of the John Greenleaf Whittier Papers.