The Mission of the Manuscript Society is to encourage the collection and preservation of manuscripts and documents; to stimulate and aid collectors in their various collecting specialties; to facilitate the exchange of information and knowledge among collectors, scholars, dealers and the general public; and to promote the highest professional and ethical standards.
Applications now being accepted.
Shirley J. Sands, executive director of The Manuscript Society, has announced her retirement, effective July 31, 2021.
Since 2010 she has tirelessly managed the Society day to day, and helped organize the Annual Meetings, from her first in Los Angeles to assuming even more responsibility in Kansas City (2015) and Boston (2019). She will be greatly missed.
As executive director, she has worked with six presidents of the Society. When committee chairs and members alike have questions, they go to Shirley, who is known for her prompt and thoughtful responses. She has been the face of the Society in dealing with member universities whose doctoral candidates have won the Maass Research Grant, awarded annually.
For information about the position Click. Shirley will be hard to replace. However, a Search Committee is actively pursuing candidates to make a transition as seamless as possible. Suggestions are most welcome. Input from members of The Manuscript Society is encouraged, according to the Chair of the Search Committee and Society Vice-President, Ellen Myers.
Manuscript Digest – February/March 2021 – This complimentary e-digest, now published bi-monthly, covers significant acquisitions and sales, manuscripts lost and found, rare books and ephemera, document conservation, and more.
From The Grolier Club: March 2021, New York The Grolier Club Library is pleased to announce the receipt of a major gift, the Collection on the Detection of Forged Handwriting, which is the most important and comprehensive collection on the subject known to exist anywhere. The gift is from club members Kenneth W. Rendell and […]
Manuscript Society members are always looking for an item to complete a collection. A letter, an image, a photograph, it does not matter. What will be a fair price for the sought after piece? What about the provenance? Where can I find many different catalogs? It has always been a challenge for the collector to […]
January 23rd – National Handwriting Day To hand write a letter or send an email. Maybe a text. Perhaps a tweet. How do you stay in contact with your friends and family? The fast tweet or text to confirm a date? Fine perhaps on the spur of a moment…. but when you want to […]
Anderson’s Diary Highlights Epidemic “Word of the disease in New York City came “from every quarter.” The place was “besieged.” Thousands fled to the countryside—so many that transportation became impossible to find. Others huddled inside their homes. Many died. Hospitals were overrun, and nurses and doctors were among the earliest to succumb. People who […]
Letterlocking What do Mary Queen of Scots, Galileo, Marie Antoinette and Niccolò Machiavelli have in common? All practiced letterlocking! Letterlocking used complicated folds to seal correspondence. Virtually hiding correspondence from prying eyes. Sometimes the recipient might need to rip the paper to open it. The folding acted as a kind of tamper-evident seal. No need […]
Collecting Conversations: An Interview with William Fliss, Archivist of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University. Curator, J. R. R. Tolkien collection Kevin Segall J.R.R. Tolkien Collection – Marquette University KS: What was your background before becoming an archivist at the Marquette libraries and how did you begin your career? WF: My background […]
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has acquired the personal papers of Thomas T. Eckert (1825–1910). Thomas Eckert was head of the United States Military Telegraph (USMT) under Pres. Abraham Lincoln and later the president of Western Union. The archive includes materials related to inventor Thomas Edison’s first great electrical invention: the quadruplex […]
William Henry Dorsey William Henry Dorsey was an African American of means who lived in 19th-century Philadelphia. Like many others of his generations, he was bitten by the collecting and archiving bug. The son of Thomas Dorsey, an enslaved man who fled bondage in Maryland and secured his freedom in Philadelphia, William was born in […]
