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News and Highlights: From the Vault (December 2005/January 2006)
Happy New Year!
This holiday card was one of hundreds produced by the company Raphael Tuck & Sons in the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century. It is part of a large collection of similar greeting cards located in our Maryland Manuscripts Collection. Raphael Tuck & Sons was a British company, but these postcards were most likely collected by a Maryland individual.
Additional Resources
The Maryland Manuscripts Collection consists of over 5000 individually cataloged letters, diaries, military and court records, ledger books, and printed ephemera (broadsides, handbills, etc.) related to the Maryland region--principally dating from 1750 to 1900. Individual items of significance include:
- MDMS 4273--Letter written by a soldier named John to his family while he was at the U. S. General Hospital in Annapolis in 1864. The stationary is printed with a large picture of the hospital site, and John has drawn a diagram of the grounds and of the arrangement of his hospital room.
- MDMS 4319--Volume of Post Guard Reports of the 6th Regiment of Maryland Volunteers. The reports date from September 1862 to March 1863. Places listed in the reports include Harpers Ferry, Camp Kenly, Bolivar Heights, Williamsport, Camp Maffitt, Camp Franklin, Camp Fred[?] Junction, and a Camp near Monocacy Bridge.
- MDMS 4543--"A Book for Quotations Belonging to Wm. Henry A. Hamilton of Baltimore Co., Maryland, Dick. College, May 2nd 1863." This notebook contains, alongside quotations from Aesop and Shakespeare, quotations of prose and poetry relating to the Civil War.
- MDMS 5213--The John Jacob Omenhausser Sketchbook. While a Confederate prisoner at Point Lookout Prison Camp, Omenhausser sketched scenes of prison life. The color drawings are done in the style of cartoons, with each person in the scene speaking a line of dialogue.
- MDMS 5390--Diary of Private L. J. Watkins, 1st Maryland Cavalry, C. S. A. The diary, written in pencil, discusses many battles in detail.
- MDMS 5411--Diary kept by Susan Howell, a teenage girl in Baltimore, from January 1-July 31, 1853. This diary contains entries that document in great detail the everyday activities of an average middle-class young woman of the era. Walks, school, and music and dancing lessons are frequently noted by Miss Howell. Also mentioned are the death of a sister and the wedding of a friend.
- MDMS 5433--Diary of Corporal Edwin Keay, Company C and E, 91st New York. The diary was written from Fort McHenry in 1865 and mentions guarding of prisoners and the death of Abraham Lincoln.
- MDMS 5440--Diary kept by Susan Mathiot Gale, a young widow and mother in Anne Arundel County, spanning 1859, with a special addendum in 1868. Mrs. Gale discussed her day-to-day activities, attendance at social functions, and her many suitors. She talks frankly on the topics of men, marriage, and slavery.
See previous From the Vault entries.