Phillis Wheatley was named for the slave ship Phillis that brought her from Gambia, West Africa, to Boston in 1761, and the Wheatley family who purchased her. At 12 years old, educated by her mistress, she began publishing poems and elegies in newspapers. She was freed after the publication of her book. Her depiction in this frontispiece is the only surviving work by the African-American slave artist Scipio Moorhead (b. ca. 1750). Gift of Sidney Lapidus, Class of 1959. Rare Book Division.
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION: See this item’s catalog record, or read about this item in a previous exhibition, “Liberty and the American Revolution.”
Like many young people today, Anicartha Miller, the daughter of a New York City judge, asked her acquaintances to contribute poems, sketches, and other mementos to fill her friendship album. The artist George Catlin (1796–1872), who would later be celebrated for his depictions of Plains Indians and the American West, gave her two watercolors, including this view of Niagara Falls. Acquired with support from the Barksdale-Dabney-Henry Fund. General Manuscripts Bound, no. 577, Manuscripts Division.
Mary Todd Lincoln wrote this letter on mourning stationery to her friend Elizabeth Blair Lee (1818–1906). In it, she grieved over her husband’s death but also looked forward to the nation’s future, sharing her thoughts on the presidential aspirations of Secretary of State William Henry Seward (1801–1872) and General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885). Gift of P. Blair Lee and E. Brooke Lee. Blair and Lee Family Papers, Manuscripts Division.