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This incomplete collection, 1878-2019 (Scattered) and undated, includes a diary, a diary/ledger book, a restored photograph of Adam Assal (and a photo print copy), and genealogical research compiled by and about Assal and his extended family.

This incomplete collection, 1878-2019 (Scattered) and undated, includes a diary, a diary/ledger, a ledger, a restored photograph of Adam Assal (and a photo print copy), and genealogical research compiled by and about Assal and his extended family. The biographical section of this finding aid details the topics Assal wrote about in his diaries. The Biographical Materials folder includes genealogical research compiled by Adam‘s descendants, their genealogical correspondence (copies) and related materials. There is an undated, professional portrait photograph of Adam Assal, which appears to have been restored in the twentieth or early twenty-first century and a photographic copy print of it. In the photograph Assal is an adult with dark hair and a greying beard. There are also three folders of genealogical information from Ancestry.com, 2019, about Assal and his family, including Eva’s incarceration as an insane woman in the State Hospital in Traverse City, and documentation of Henry Irons’ Civil War pension records. There are also two folders of Charles (Carl) Swanson) genealogical information from Ancestry.com, including one folder on extended family information, 2020-2021.

Miscellaneous notes are found on the inside covers of all the volumes in the collection. The diaries include his handwritten entries in pencil or black or red ink. The dates are scattered, sometimes skipping months in between entries, while at other times they are almost daily. Some events are recorded in a summary fashion after the fact.

The legal-size diary/ledger spans January 19, 1878-September 21, 1891 on pages 112-236 of the volume. Page 111 (the first surviving page in the volume) and page 266 include accounts concerning wood and potatoes and miscellaneous, 1885 and undated. Pages 261-262 and 265 document the daily temperature and wind. Only the G-Z front index pages, and pages 1-68, 145-148, and 217-250 survive in this ledger. An additional index is written on page 33. The dates of recorded entries jump from September 14, 1888 to May 7, 1889 on the same page (p.190). The volume includes a variety of accounts, some specifically with Assal. Accounts vary from basic mathematical totals to specific accounts for lodging, wood and log jobs, rent, postage, groceries, dry goods, and money donated to an orphan's home. Children's drawings of Essexville (p.68), blobs (pages 145, 235), and deer (page 218) are included in the volume, as well as evidence a child practiced writing their numbers (page 219). There is a printed note by a child, "Alonzo Assal Jr four years old, Frank J. Assal, ten years old" with other names and Michigan locations (p. 48). When he was age nine, Alonzo printed his name in the volume (p. 166). Scribbles are found throughout the volume. The pages that survive are separated from the covers and spine. The cover has some leather rot issues, and some pages are acidic.

A smaller diary volume contains Adam’s diary entries for September 10, 1885-January 11, 1887 (pages 43-142). There are lines in pencil around the words on pages 84-85, 114-115 and 118-121, presumably drawn by children. This volume is also missing pages. The extant pages are separated from the covers and spine. A receipt to Alonzo Assal for $62.50 from Richardson Lumber Co., Bay City, Mich., July 3, 1925 is found inside the back cover. It is printed and typed on a small, acidic envelope with a corner ripped off. Because it is acidic, the envelope is now in a folder piece of acid-free paper.

This volume consists of a pre-printed "Outfits for a Whaling Voyage" notebook kept for the whaling schooner Adelia Chase, likely maintained by Michael A. Ferreira, for a voyage out of New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1886.

This volume consists of a pre-printed "Outfits for a Whaling Voyage" notebook kept for the whaling schooner Adelia Chase, likely by Michael A. Ferreira, for a voyage out of New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1886.

The back inside cover of the volume features an advertisement for C. R. Sherman's New Bedford Navigation Store, with "all the various kinds of Nautical, Optical, and Mathematical Instruments. Nautical Books, Stationery, &c. . . . And as complete an assortment of Charts of all parts of the world visited by Whalesmen, as is required to make a complete Navigation Establishment."

The notebook entries record quantities of provisions and stores, tools and hardware, supplies, cordage and sails, clothing, stationery, and more. Several pages of notes at the end of the volume mention stops at Barbados and Fayal or St. Michaels, a list of repairs, and a list of various casks of provisions.

The Agent’s sample book from Crown Card Co., Columbus, Ohio, contains 34 samples of visiting cards accompanied by prices, design names, and instructions for ordering.

The Agent’s sample book from Crown Card Co., Columbus, Ohio, contains 34 samples of visiting cards accompanied by prices, design names, and instructions for ordering. The volume (12.5 x 18 cm) is bound with blue paper and staples. Sample styles range from simple to intricate, with some including beveling, embossing, or silk borders. Most feature chromolithographic color, floral imagery, and animals. Different type settings available to a customer are also advertised.

Almon Wheeler of Malone, New York, compiled this volume to detail his experiences while traveling through Vermont and Maine between June 14 and July 19, 1827.

Almon Wheeler of Malone, New York, compiled this volume to detail his experiences while traveling through Vermont and Maine between June 14 and July 19, 1827. Religious and biblical references are interspersed throughout, and Wheeler wrote about his encounter with a Shaker village. He also commented on his personal health and ailments like mosquito bites and stomach pains, and his thoughts on July 4th and the death of President John Adams (1735-1826).

Wheeler's notes include logistical information, such as how many miles he travelled in a day, landmarks or geographical features, or villages and towns he passed through.

The collection includes a typed transcript of the volume.

The Annie and Jake Livshis Family Papers document the history of the Mindlin-Lisvhis family, centering on Diament's research on her great-aunt Annie Mindlin Livshis (1864-1953). Born in Russia, Livshis was a Jewish feminist, anarchist, trade unionist, and homesteader who lived in the Lasker Colony, Kansas, and in Chicago. In the process of writing a book on Livshis that was never published, Diament accumulated photocopies of archival records about the Mindlin and Livshis families, photographs, and secondary sources about Jewish Americans in Kansas. Diament's collection also includes correspondence about her research.

The Annie and Jake Livshis Family Papers focus mainly on her great aunt and uncle, Annie and Jake Livshis. Although the couple were very active in anarchist circles, the main focus of this collection is their genealogy and their Kansas homestead where they were part of a Jewish agricultural colony.

A currently anonymous writer, likely a traveling salesperson, maintained this "Harris' Improved Expense Account Book for Traveling Men: Vest Pocket Edition" primarily while traveling in Arkansas during January 1889. Other stops appear to have been in Tennessee and North Carolina. The entries are divided between cash disbursed and received, with sections for towns visited, hotel bills, forms of transportation and fare (railroad, sleeper and boat passage, hack, omnibus, street car, etc.), mileage, baggage, washing and incidentals, and other travel expenses.

A currently anonymous writer, likely a traveling salesperson, maintained this "Harris' Improved Expense Account Book for Traveling Men: Vest Pocket Edition" primarily while traveling in Arkansas during January 1889. Other stops appear to have been in Tennessee and North Carolina.

The entries are divided between cash disbursed and received, with sections for towns visited, hotel bills, forms of transportation and fare (railroad, sleeper and boat passage, hack, omnibus, street car, etc.), mileage, baggage, washing and incidentals, and other travel expenses.

A Select Vacation Tour to Marble, Colorado contains 55 photographs, 11 clippings, 6 pieces of ephemera, and 1 letter documenting an inspection trip for potential investors to marble and slate quarries in Colorado organized by the Knickerbocker Syndicate.

A Select Vacation Tour to Marble, Colorado contains 55 photographs, 11 clippings, 6 pieces of ephemera, and 1 letter documenting an inspection trip for potential investors to marble and slate quarries in Colorado organized by the Knickerbocker Syndicate.

The album (18 x 25.5 cm) is lacking a front cover, but the contents are undamaged. The first item is an illustrated brochure attached to the album's front cover that describes the upcoming journey and provides a detailed itinerary and sample menu. While aimed primarily at current investors in the Colorado-Yule Marble Company and the Colorado Slate Company, “families and friends or acquaintances” were also welcome. The cost was not specified.

The rest of the album documents the trip and promotes the quality of company products. Photographs show Yule marble in use at the Cheesman Memorial in Denver and the Youngstown, Ohio, courthouse. Pamphlets and newspaper articles also declare the marble to be of better quality than Carrara marble and the slate is in quantities that will eclipse Wales in the industry, who was the world leader at the time.

The passengers made a thorough inspection of the Yule Marble site over two days and are shown riding from the mill to the quarry site in the new electric trolley powered by electricity generated from the Crystal River, on the quarry floor watching workers extract blocks that will be shaped into columns at the mill, and visited the site of the slate quarry which was in the early stages of development. Other highlights of the trip included stopovers at Glenwood Hot Springs Lodge and Colorado Springs, excursions to tourist sites like Pikes Peak and Cripple Creek, and city tours in Kansas City, Denver, and elsewhere. Local newspapers covered many of these visits, and clippings are included in the album.

Also present is a letter of appreciation to the mine supervisors signed by 31 of the travelers and an illustrated report on the state of the mine by a mechanical engineer on the trip named Arthur M. Chidester (who also took most of the album’s photographs).

This collection consists of an unidentified persons' notes on petitions and sworn statements related to a proposed new road in Ashburnham, Massachusetts, on August 23, 1847. The volume is a blank book with a blue paper cover, with title "WRITING BOOK. MADE FOR JOHN P. HASKELL, TEACHER OF PENMANSHIP. 1847", printed by W. J. Merriam in Fitchburg.

This oversized scrapbook consists of sections of Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson circus advertising posters. The imagery includes circus tents, musical wagons (including the "Silver-Tubed Caliope" and "Sacred Chimes"), camels and horses, animal trainers, artillerymen seemingly of Middle Eastern descent (possibly part of the "Bedouin Arab" performers), acrobats, minstrel performers, African American musicians, and portraits of P. T. Barnum, J. A. Bailey, and J. L. Hutchinson.

This oversized scrapbook consists of sections of printed Barnum, Bailey & Hutchinson circus advertising posters. The imagery includes circus tents, musical wagons (including the "Silver-Tubed Caliope" and "Sacred Chimes"), camels and horses, animal trainers, artillerymen seemingly of Middle Eastern descent (possibly part of the "Bedouin Arab" performers), acrobats, minstrel performers, African American musicians, and portraits of P. T. Barnum, J. A. Bailey, and J. L. Hutchinson. The back cover bears the print "Toilers of the Sea - Trawling on t[he Dogger Bank]," showing fishermen at sea.

This volume is an early French translation of Bartolomé de Las Casas influential treatise Brevissima Relacion de la Destruccion de las India, an indictment of the Spanish conquerors for acts of brutality inflicted on the indigenous peoples of the New World.

In 1539, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote Breuissima relacion de la destruycion de las Indias..., a short treatise that indicted the Spanish conquerors for acts of brutality inflicted on the American Indians in the New World. The first of nine tracts on this subject, Brevissima was first published in 1552 and later published in France in 1579 as Tyrannies et Cruautez des Espagnols Perpetres es Indes Occidentales Quon dit le Nouveau Monde: Brievement Descrites en Lettre Castillane par L'Evesque Don Frere Bartelemy De Las Casas...fidelement traduites par Jackques De Miggrode: à Paris par Guillaume Julien.... Clements manuscript was likely prepared in 1582 for an illustrated Paris edition which was never printed; the 17 watercolor illustrations, depicting gruesome acts of torture, are similar to the engravings of Jodocus van Wingheused used by DeBry for the first illustrated Latin edition in 1598.

Las Casas wrote two chronicles, Historia General de las Indias and Historia Apologetica de las Indias, which were designed to form a single work. He asked his executors not to publish them until forty years after his death. They were not printed, in fact, until 1875-1876 at Madrid, when they appeared under the title "Historia de las Yndias." The original manuscripts are in the Biblioteca de la Academia de la Historia, Madrid. The Clements copy corresponds to the prologue and first 11 chapters of the printed Historia General.

Two bookplates are present on the front pastedown: The Honble. Frederic North, 5th Earl of Guilford and William L. Clements. The first two leaves are mounted and the volume contains other repairs. A note written in ink, possibly a contemporary hand, reads, "Manuscrit original qui a servi à l'imprimé de 1582." The following binding description was provided by Julia Miller: non-contemporary but notable 18th century binding; dark green leather; covers bordered with decorative rolls; large fleur de lis corner decorations; spine gilt; maroon leather lettering piece tooled in gold; black leather roundel, blank; paper shelf label at tail of spine; non-contemporary marbled and plain endpapers; text block sewn on four recessed cords; text edges gilt; worked headbands; pink silk register bound in.