Collecting area: World War I

Born in Cork, Ireland to a prosperous family, the Anglin siblings began immigrating to Canada and the United States in 1903. The first to relocate to Canada, brothers Will and Sydney pursued vastly different careers, one as a Presbyterian minister and the other as a salesman at a Toronto slaughterhouse. George and Crawford both served in the military during World War I, the former in the British Infantry as a medical officer and the latter in the 4th University Overseas Company first in France and later in Belgium where he died saving the life of a wounded soldier. Gladys Anglin trained as a nurse, but worked in a Canadian department store and at the Railway Office before suffering a mental breakdown and entering the Ontario Hospital as a patient. Ethel remained in Ireland the longest where she taught Domestic Economics at a technical school. The only Anglin to immigrate to the United States and the only female sibling to marry, Ida and husband David Jackson settled in Monson, Massachusetts where they raised four daughters.

The Anglin siblings were part of a close knit family who stayed in contact despite their geographic separation through their correspondence. Siblings wrote and exchanged lengthy letters that document not only family news, but also news of local and national significance. Topics addressed in their letters include World War I, the Irish revolution, medicine, religious ministry, and domestic issues from the ability of a single woman to support herself through work to child rearing.

Enlisting for military service during the First World War, Frank Boyden Kelton began basic training in Jacksonville, Fla., in December 1917, and arrived in France as part of the American Expeditionary Forces by May 1918. Assigned to duty with the motor transport service in spare parts depots, he served in France through the late winter 1919.

The Boyden Papers contain 21 letters from Frank Kelton to his aunt in Holden, Mass., Susan Eliza “Lila” Boyden, along with five letters from other servicemen or their spouses. Despite some self-censorship and a stated desire not to emphasize the hardships he endured, Kelton’s letters provide a sense of service in one of the support units for the AEF. The single letter from family friend Ben D’Ewart briefly recaps his activities in the 110 Mortar Battery of Coast Artillery Corps during the battles of St. Mihiel and the Argonne Forrest.

In 1918, Clinton Melville Tilman Brann, a dentist by training, served with in the 17th Field Artillery of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, a unit cited for gallantry in five critical engagements of the First World War. During his time overseas, Brann maintained an intense correspondence with Rhea Oppenheimer, despite fears that their different religious (he Presbyterian, she Jewish) and family backgrounds would prove an obstacle. After demobilization, Brann returned home and on Sept. 17, 1919, married Rhea. He went on to build a successful practice in dentistry in Iowa, raising a son and daughter. Clinton Brann passed away on Sept 8, 1961, in Orlando, Fla., with Rhea following on December 29, 1987 in Winter Park, Fla.

In two regards, the Brann collection presents an unusual glimpse into families affected by the First World War. First, Brann’s letters home offer a sense of his unusual role in the service, as a junior officer and dentist, and second, his letters are marked by his unusual relationship with Rhea Oppenheimer and their concerns over the future prospects for a mixed marriage. The collection also includes a wealth of photographs of the Branns’ life together, a family scrapbook, and a handful of mementoes and miscellaneous documents.

An agricultural and educational reformer born in 1868, Kenyon Butterfield was the ninth president of Massachusetts Agricultural College and one of the university’s most important figures. An 1891 graduate of Michigan Agricultural College and recipient of MA in Economics and Rural Sociology from the University of Michigan (1902), Butterfield entered university administration early in his career, becoming President of the Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in 1903 and, only three years later, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College. Possessed of a Progressive spirit, Butterfield revolutionized the college during his 18 years in Amherst, expanding and diversifying the curriculum, quadrupling the institutional budget, fostering a dramatic increase in the presence of women on campus and expanding the curriculum, and above all, helping to promote the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 and developing the Cooperative Extension Service into a vital asset to the Commonwealth. Nationally, he maintained a leadership role in the field of rural sociology and among Land Grant University presidents. After leaving Amherst in 1924, Butterfield served as President at Michigan Agricultural College for four years and was active in missionary endeavors in Asia before retiring. He died at his home in Amherst on Nov. 25, 1936.

The Butterfield Papers contain biographical materials, administrative and official papers of both of his presidencies, typescripts of his talks, and copies of his published writings. Includes correspondence and memoranda (with students, officials, legislators, officers of organizations, and private individuals), reports, outlines, minutes, surveys, and internal memoranda.

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Shortly before his twentieth birthday in 1918, Roswell “Ross” Calin joined the 44th Coast Artillery Corps and was sent overseas for service. Arriving in France in August 1918, Calin took part in the St. Mihiel offensive and was wounded in action. He returned to his home in Providence, R.I., early in 1919 and was active in veterans’ organizations for years, including serving as Rhode Island State Adjutant of the Disabled American Veterans in the mid-1920s.

The Calin collection consists of two scrapbook “volumes,” now disbound, assembled by Ross Calin to document his experience in the First World War. Labeled a “memoir,” the volumes consist primarily of photographs and postcards (including many real photo postcards) depicting American troops in the field, war damage, and sites visited by Calin in France. Also included are a selection of medals received by Calin, including a Victory Medal with St. Mihiel clasp, and some newspaper clippings, primarily from the post-war years.

An Italian poet, journalist, novelist, and dramatist, Gabriele D’Annunzio enjoyed a flamboyant career in international affairs after the First World War when he raised a small army and seized the port of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia). Failing in his attempts to annex his territory to Italy, D’Annunzio reigned as Duce over the micro-state for over a year before being forced to relinquish control.

The fifteen imprints comprising this collection of scarce broadsides, all printed in the short-lived Free State of Fiume. During the brief period of his reign in Fiume, D’Annunzio issued propagandistic broadsides, proclamations, and leaflets almost daily, often distributing them by airplane drop over the city. Included is a rare first edition of D’Annunzio’s most famous piece from the Fiume period, Italia e vita.

Mary Frances Healy, a young schoolteacher from Springfield, Mass., volunteered to serve with the National Catholic War Council in the waning days of the First World War. Stationed for sixth months at the Etoile Club in Paris in 1919, Healy helped provide meals, entertainment, and support for Catholic American serviceman awaiting demobilization. After returning home to Springfield, she resumed her teaching career at the Chestnut Street Junior High School.

This slender photograph album contains 53 photographs from Mary Healy’s time working with at the National Catholic War Council’s Etoile Club in Paris in 1919. Healy included a handful of images of the Club’s interior taken by a professional photographer, but also includes her own images depicting the staff and the area around the Club along with side trips to the scene of American military action at Belleau Wood and Chateau Thierry, the American military cemetery there and the devastation inflicted on the nearby town of Bouresches, and scenes in the streets of Paris, Rheims, and in the Haute Pyrenees.

A diplomatic and military historian, Waldo H. Heinrichs was the product of a family with a unique global perspective. A descendant of missionaries to Hawaii and South India and son of a man who led the YMCA mission in Palestine, Heinrichs grew up traveling internationally. After military service during the Second World War, he received both a bachelor’s degree (1949) and doctorate (1960) in history from Harvard, sandwiching in post-baccalaureate study at Brasenose College, Oxford, and stint in the foreign service and advertising. A long-time member of the faculty at Temple University, he has written extensively on U.S. foreign relations in the twentieth century. His first book, Joseph Grew, American Ambassador (1966), was awarded the Allan Nevins Prize and in later works he explored both the diplomatic and military history of the Pacific.

A tireless researcher, Heinrichs left a rich record of correspondence, writing, and notes relating to his work as an historian, and especially to his work on the diplomatic and military background of the Pacific during the Second World War. His collection, however, is still broader, including content relating to his own military service during and after the war and fascinating materials relating to his family. Of particular note are records of his father, Waldo Huntley Heinrichs, including copies of a diary kept as a fighter pilot in the 95th Aero Squadron during the First World War and a memoir of his experiences being shot down and taken as a prisoner of war, along with later materials documenting his YMCA service, and his on faculty at Middlebury College and as an intelligence officer with the 8th Fighter Command during the Second World War.

Born on December 13, 1887, Gladys Theodora Parrish to wealthy birthright Quaker Alfred Parrish and Katharine Broadwood Jennings. Gladys married Constant Davis Huntington on October 17, 1916, who had been chairman of the London office of G. P. Putnam’s publishing company since 1905. The couple first resided in Hyde Park Gardens in London and then at Amberley House in Sussex. They had one daughter on January 11, 1922, Georgiana Mary Alfreda (Urquhart). Gladys Huntington wrote many plays and novels, including the bestselling book Madame Solario, published anonymously in 1956. Other published titles include; Carfrae’s Comedy (1915, novel), Barton’s Folly (1924, play), and Turgeniev (c. 1930, play). She died at St. George’s Hospital (Westminster) on May 31, 1959, at the age of 71.

The Gladys Parrish Huntington Papers is primarily composed of the correspondence of Gladys Huntington with her mother, Katharine “Kate” Parrish, husband Constant, daughter Alfreda, various friends, relatives, and professional contacts. Additionally, the collection contains a sizable amount of Gladys’ correspondence and traded manuscripts, short stories, poetry, and drafts with fellow authors such as Leo Myers, Nicolo Tucci, Helen Granville-Barker, Viola Mynell, Eric Clough Taylor, Cynthia Asquith, Clifford Bax, and others. Many of her own manuscripts and typed drafts of novels and plays (Madame Solario, Turgeniev, her unfinished final work, The Ladies’ Mile), along with childhood writings, photo albums, datebooks, and diaries spanning her lifetime are contained within the collection.

Advances in color printing technologies combined with decreasing costs of publication led to a flowering of illustrated sheet music between 1890 and the 1920s.

This small collection is comprised of illustrated sheet music dating primarily from the first quarter of the twentieth century. Representing a cross-section of popular music at the time from minstrel tunes to patriotic marches, most of the songs were selected either for their representation of African Americans (usually in stereotypical and racist caricature) or as examples of pro-war propaganda during the First World War.