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As part of its study of early American material culture, the University of Delaware’s Winterthur Museum graduate school class visited Burke Library on Saturday, Nov. 11, to view materials from the communal societies collection.

In three recent articles, TIME magazine has engaged the expertise of Hamilton experts in reporting a story. Most recently, Director of Special Collections and History Lecturer Christian Goodwillie was quoted in Read a Rare Alexander Hamilton Love Letter to Elizabeth Schuyler.

Director and Curator of Special Collections and Archives Christian Goodwillie recently published several articles on communal societies.

Students from the seminar on Religious Communal Societies in United States History recently visited the Oneida Community Mansion House, giving new depth to their study of the 19th century religious group.

“I’m hoping that I can give this document to an organization that will take good care of it and allow other people to study and appreciate it.” These words, spoken by Jean Waite on an episode of PBS’s History Detective in 2012, prompted Hamilton’s Director of Special Collections Christian Goodwillie to place a call that, three years later, led to a donation to the college’s Communal Societies collection.

Symbols in the Wilderness: Early Masonic Survivals in Upstate New York, co-authored by Director of Special Collections Christian Goodwillie, began with a chance glance at a building as he drove to Cooperstown, N.Y. Intrigued by the structure, Western Star Lodge and now the Bridgewater Masonic Lodge, he became even more interested in the art work it once housed. Thus Goodwillie’s exploration of Masonic symbols – expressed in paintings, murals, textiles and graphics – began.  

A spring meeting with Everson Hull, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, and Hamilton students planning a service trip to Nevis resulted in yet another meeting and alliance between Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace and the college. During the March visit Hull met with Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives, to review documents from Hamilton’s Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection related to Nevis.

This summer KT Glusac ’17, working with Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack, will travel throughout New York State, living with and researching a variety of communal societies. Her research is funded through a Levitt Center grant.

The Central NY Library Resources Council (CLRC) recently awarded Hamilton funding to complete the digitization of the Beinecke Lesser Antilles manuscripts, part of the Burke Library’s Special Collections. The Beinecke Collection includes rare original documents, maps, plantation reports and correspondence, along with oil paintings and watercolors.

Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives in Burke Library, recently published “Baseball, Beards, Bands, and the Babes: Michigan’s House of David Religious Community” in Ephemera Journal, the quarterly publication of the Ephemera Society of America.