How do we remember? Let us count the ways

The University of Michigan is driving an in-depth, cross-disciplinary audit of its campus: the land it sits upon, the historical figures it commemorates and how we do, or should, remember at U-M.

Whether it be through augmented reality representation of underrecognized women and their contributions to the campus as we know it, Native and settler voices discussing the place of the U.S. university in colonial histories and futures, or digital engrams and how the ways we remember in the 21st century might shock Aristotle, no stone will be left unturned.

Melanie Manos: “HerView: Visualizing Women’s Work”

U-M Stamps School of Art & Design lecturer Melanie Manos will unveil the U-M campus portion of her AR project, “HerView: Visualizing Women’s Work,” during the Memory & Monuments Open House. Through this work, she has set out to explore the use of art media for social justice and investigate how public art can be used to redress historic gender bias.

Manos is one of eight Public Art & Engagement Fellows selected to work with Paul Farber, founder of Philadelphia-based Monument Lab and inaugural curator in residence of the U-M Arts Initiative. Monument Lab facilitates critical conversations around the past, present and future of monuments and collective memory.

With only a few monuments on the U-M campus, Manos uses buildings—the Law Library, Detroit Observatory and Michigan League, specifically—as her historical touchpoints. Using just a smartphone (no app or password required), users can view an interactive AR representation of a woman from U-M’s history and the contributions she made to that building or time period that have been underrecognized.

Manos has plans to expand the project to monuments across Detroit.

The project, and more from additional fellows, will be discussed at the Memory & Monuments Open House Oct. 26-28 at the U-M Museum of Art. The event is free and open to the public.

Andrew Herscher: “Under the Campus, the Land”

Andrew Herscher, professor of architecture at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and professor of history of art at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, has organized a set of public conversations, “Under the Campus, the Land.” Native and settler voices will gather to speak to and about the university around four themes: reckoning with the settler university, advancing Native student activism, investigating university land and making amends to the land.

The conversations will take place in conjunction with two exhibitions at the U-M Museum of Art: “Andrea Carlson’s Future Cache,” which commemorates the Cheboiganing Band of Ottawa and Chippewa people who were violently displaced from land in Northern Michigan now owned by U-M, and Cannupa Hanska Luger’s “You’re Welcome,” which explores histories and narratives of land occupied by U-M.

“Under the Campus, the Land” takes place Oct. 27-28 and is free and open to the public.

Gabriela Ruiz: “Digital Engrams”

The latest exhibition at the Humanities Gallery, Gabriela Ruiz‘s “Digital Engrams,” looks at how much has changed in the 21st Century version of “remembering.” Memories that might be formed in “unplugged” spaces are immediately uploaded, edited, shared. Rather than relying on our minds to recall details and feelings, we can easily turn to photo evidence and to-the-minute updates of lived experiences. Ruiz asks, “does this impact our ability to remember and our own sense of direction in the process?”

“Digital Engrams” opens Nov. 2 and is free and open to the public. The Humanities Gallery is located at 202 S. Thayer St.

The politics of drag for LGBTQ+ History Month: U-M expert offers insights

University of Michigan professor Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, author of “Translocas: The Politics of Puerto Rican Drag and Trans Performance,” is available to discuss drag as an art form and the politics of drag for LGBTQ+ History Month.

He will moderate a panel discussion about drag as resistance with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” star Monet X Change and other local drag queens at Ann Arbor’s Necto Oct. 12. The panel is organized by the U-M Arts Initiative and U-M Museum of Art as part of the Arts & Resistance theme semester.

La Fountain-Stokes, who performs drag locally, is a professor of American culture, Spanish, Latina/o studies, and women’s and gender studies. He talks below about drag in society and his 20 years of research in the field.

Performing drag

I taught a first year seminar at U-M through the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts entitled ‘Drag in America,'” he said. “So for me, drag is something I write about, it’s something I teach, and it’s something I perform. I’ve performed as Lola von Miramar since 2010.

It has been really interesting as a person who is primarily a scholar—my salary from the University of Michigan comes from being a professor, not an artist—but as a person who writes about drag, it was really meaningful and useful to perform in drag, to be able to write from an insider, outsider perspective.

Politics of drag

Drag, in addition to being a form of entertainment, in addition to being a subcultural expression very linked frequently to LGBT cultures, in addition to being an art form and something that is fun and that people like to do, is also a type of resistance and there are politics linked to drag performance whether it is done by cisgender people or transgender people.

Drag is a term that is related to political struggles, it is related to artistic expression, and it is also a type of employment. Rather recently, several states and politicians wanted to ban drag or say drag was dangerous to society and should not be allowed in proximity to schools or churches or to young people. It was a type of political censorship as much as artistic and work censorship. I think it really helped a lot of people clarify the politics involved.

For example, when Tennessee, then Texas, then Florida and other states, tried to ban drag, it became much clearer for people how drag has become a touchpoint in culture wars, in wars about LGBT rights, in discussions about transgender rights and self-expression.

Is drag always making a political statement?

No. It is not a statement no matter what, because anyone can do drag, regardless of their background or their identity. The politics of drag are open—they vary enormously. People bring different commitments and agendas and interests to their drag performance.

So what is absolutely true is that some people see drag as a profoundly political act. For example, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, in California and now globally—they explicitly see drag as a way to challenge the hypocrisy, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia of the Catholic church and American society. You have artists like Taylor Mac, who has won major awards across the U.S., he is a Macarthur genius grant awardee, and he sees his drag performance as a way to make an intervention about politics, gender, sexuality.

But it is never not an art form. Any art form can be used to convey and discuss political messages, or not. It’s really a personal choice. Sometimes there are politics associated with the reception, so maybe I think that I am not a political artist, but then immediately when someone tries to ban what I do, it becomes a political performance. Not because of my intention, but because of the resistance to the art form.

Why speak up now?

(In April), there was a growing awareness of the challenges that drag performers face, and how there is this effort to demonize drag performance as something that is inappropriate and dangerous and undesirable. That is why we were so vehement and committed to talking about the social role of drag, its importance and its value as an art form, a type of political expression, as a free speech issue, as a labor issue and as an LGBT issue.

U-M’s sustainable material, color garden in bloom

The University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design has taken another important step toward campus wide carbon neutrality with the opening of the Sustainable Materials & Color Garden on the grounds of the school.

The garden, conceived and built by Stamps faculty, staff and students, allows Stamps creatives to source plants for natural art practices creating accessible opportunities to cultivate plants used for materials, natural dyes, and papermaking.

When “a blank piece of paper” is a widely used metaphor for “nothing at all,” it can be a task—or a month-long course—to teach students that not only is paper a novel product, but one that requires the physical beating of fibers from nature into separation, and completion of the subsequent natural processes that allow for paper creation.

Nicholas Dowgwillo, Stamps 2D media studio coordinator and leader of this course, would know. Thankfully though, this month-long workshop with kozo—Japanese mulberry used to make paper—had the intended impact.

“There was a lot of student interest in looking into the natural origins of the plants that make the material we were working with,” Dowgwillo said.

Nicholas Dowgwillo at opening reception of Sustainable Materials & Color Garden

Kit Parks, Stamps fiber and 2D foundations studio coordinator, found similar enthusiasm from students around natural dye materials.

“When the pandemic hit, a lot of students were creating their own dyes at home and were asking what it would take to start our own garden here. So we connected with the U-M campus farm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, and in 2021, we planted a couple of beds out there,” Parks said.

Students led the research of plants they were interested in having access to, including how to plant and grow them and how to process them into usable materials and dyes.

Ultimately, without a bus route directly to the campus farm, it was difficult to access and maintain the gardens at Matthaei. Out of an abundance of student interest, a synthesis between Parks, Dowgwillo, and Stamps professor Joe Trumpey, and a successful Giving Blue Day fundraising campaign, the on-location garden could become a reality.

Now, just steps from the Stamps building, is a garden with muraski, hibiscus, flax, tango cosmos, marigold, Japanese indigo, chamomile and more.

A step toward carbon neutrality

“Getting students aware of where their stuff comes from is critical. Especially as makers, it is our responsibility to do right,” Trumpey said. “If we are using unsustainable materials that treat the earth, the water, the soil, the air, other flora and fauna badly, and especially if it treats humans badly, that is not a good part of someone’s practices. So, we have to teach the students how to source good materials and develop a rubric for ‘what is good.'”

The proximity of the garden to the studios at Stamps makes it easy for classes to step outside and visualize the processes of making their own materials.

Echoing U-M’s commitment to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions universitywide, Trumpey teaches his students to “see the carbon in everything.”

“If we had to compare a synthetic yellow dye that’s manufactured with some petro chemical, that comes from some distant place, that has a different kind of a carbon footprint than a few students going out to the campus farm and clipping goldenrod heads that have pollinator benefits, honeybee benefits and beauty benefits, and bringing those to the studio to boil in water to make a nice yellow dye out of it—that is a completely different kind of carbon story,” he said.

Since the pandemic, supply chain issues have been a persistent issue across industries, the arts notwithstanding; not being able to access the materials you need can completely halt the artistic process, Trumpey said. But by imparting a sense of resourcefulness, students can feel empowered to continue their practice even in unprecedented times, he said.

“Thinking around questions of sustainability in the sense of how we sustain an art practice in an era of climate change, and knowing that our resources and timelines, and costs of shipping and receiving materials from a global supply chain will be changing, and in some cases suddenly, is important,” Parks said.

A center of gravity

In addition to serving as an integral piece of the holistic artmaking puzzle, another important purpose of the garden is to create space for community.

“Good spaces encourage community—I call them ‘centers of gravity,'” Trumpey said. “We look at this dye garden space as a center of gravity where people could be seeing some beautiful things, thinking about their work, hanging out with friends, drinking a coffee … people gravitate towards beautiful things; having nature as part of that is important. And if it’s a didactic space where students can think, ‘these plants aren’t just pretty, they also have a purpose; I’m making beautiful things out of beautiful things,’ then they really understand the full story.”

Parks said they named the garden the Stamps Sustainable Materials & Color Garden because “it’s going to facilitate a lot of different projects.”

“You can use the plants for dye, for making pigment, watercolors, paints, food coloring, bio materials, making paper, making yarn, but it’s also a site that can be engaged with from the perspective of community development and design,” Parks said.

Dowgillo said that artmaking doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

“The materials that we use, the way we interact with others in the studio, the audiences for the work that we make, all those things are connected to each other,” he said. “Deepening your understanding of art is deepening your understanding of those connections, and to me that is really important.”

The space is furnished with benches, stools and a table that were built from the historic Tappan Oak. Students milled the oak and utilized indigo harvested from the garden itself to dye the stools blue.

In the future, responsibility of the garden will be taken over by an extracurricular student-based club. They will make planting and growing decisions; plan events, programs and community harvest days; and continue to increase community engagement with the space.

Stamps classes will engage with the garden on many levels and will have the opportunity to propose ways of using materials for their coursework, suggest workshops that can take place in the garden, and participate in the actual harvesting of materials.

“Being able to look around your local environment and know how you can connect things together, I think that helps all of us ground our practices—literally and figuratively,” Trumpey said.

Little Amal, symbol of human rights, heads to U-M

ANN ARBOR—Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee child, will be making her way onto the University of Michigan campus as part of a 6,000-mile walk across the U.S. this week.

“This extraordinary event gives us an opportunity to think about how to engage meaningfully and ethically with experiences of disenfranchisement and displacement,” said Sara Blair, vice provost for academic and faculty affairs, and arts and humanities.

The Sept. 23 visit is produced by A2SF in partnership with the Arts Initiative, U-M Museum of Art, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and the Ann Arbor District Library. The afternoon walk begins at 3:30 p.m. on the south side of N. University at Thayer Street. The evening walk begins at 7 p.m. at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market in Kerrytown. The events are open to the public.

“A2SF is thrilled to join the U-M Arts Initiative and our partners in welcoming Little Amal, an international symbol of human rights, to Ann Arbor,” said Mike Michelon, executive director of Ann Arbor Summer Festival (A2SF).

Amal Walks Across America began in Boston Sept. 7 and ends in San Diego Nov. 5. Stops include Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Dearborn, Flint and Chicago. Over nine weeks, Amal will be welcomed by 1,500-plus artists at more than 100 artistic events across 37 towns and cities.

The project was created by the British production companies The Walk Productions and Good Chance in collaboration with the South African Handspring Puppet Company.

Little Amal’s visit is just one of a range of programs offered as part of the Arts and Resistance theme semester sponsored by the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, U-M Museum of Art and U-M Arts Initiative. As part of a fall course called “Virtual Realities, Actual Worlds,” students will engage Amal Walks America to consider creative immersive experiences and their social and aesthetic impact.

The city of Ann Arbor awarded a Mayoral Proclamation from Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor earlier this month.

ArtPrize 2023 features Stamps alums

Are you making a stop at ArtPrize this year? Art is exhibited in galleries, storefronts, parks, museums, and public spaces throughout Grand Rapids for eighteen days. The event awards over $400,000 directly to artists through popular and juried voting.

Visit Stamps’ site to see a list of alums participating in ArtPrize, which runs from Sept. 14 to Oct. 1, 2023.

Cannupa Hanska Luger ‘GIFTS’ U-M campus with public art installation

Part of ongoing campuswide initiative to challenge university history, reexamine what gets memorialized

The University of Michigan Museum of Art has a new face.

Across the facade of Alumni Memorial Hall—a neoclassical building that opened in 1910 to commemorate U-M students and staff who served in the Mexican-American, Civil, and Spanish-American wars, and home to UMMA—is the experimental installation, “GIFT,” commissioned by artist Cannupa Hanska Luger.

“GIFT” is a reference to the 1817 Treaty of Fort Meigs, which states that Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi tribes gifted land that was later sold to establish U-M’s endowments and help create its Ann Arbor campus.

To explore the meaning of gifting within both the contexts of colonialism and Indigenous communities, Luger painted the word “GIFT” in white porcelain clay slip on the columns of the building. In the days following, Luger and a team of collaborators will continue to paint around the letters, covering the entire historic facade with a layer of white clay and eventually covering the letters themselves.

Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold. According to a statement from his website, Luger creates “monumental installations, sculpture and performance to communicate urgent stories about 21st Century Indigeneity (by combining) critical cultural analysis with dedication and respect for the diverse materials, environments and communities he engages, while provoking diverse audiences to engage with Indigenous peoples and values apart from the lens of colonial social structuring,”

Luger said the stone of Alumni Memorial Hall is sandstone from Ohio that was quarried and extracted, and rebuilt into a Greek and Romanesque story in Michigan.

“The architecture itself embeds a history into the campus that was never here,” he said. “It is a monument to civilization and thought and enlightenment; but it is also an imposition and an extraction from the very land that we’re standing on. With ‘GIFT,’ I want to do the same thing, present an imposition drawn from an extraction.

“Using Kaolin, a white clay from North America, I’m going to resurface the exterior of the Museum, presenting it as white as I think it is. And then in cooperation and relationship with the environment, the weather will remove that thin exterior and re-expose the indigenous stone of the land.”

Through this commission, UMMA opens the door for the campus community to consider the monuments they have inherited and imagine what possible new structures are needed to commemorate histories that have been invisible or underrepresented.

This is a key example of programming around the U-M theme semester, Arts & Resistance—a cross-campus partnership between UMMA, U-M Arts Initiative and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts—which reflects on how creativity and making can arise out of oppression and destruction.

Symbolism of “GIFT”

With “GIFT,” Luger activates weather and time as co-conspirators, challenging perceptions of permanence in memory, history and even physical structures. The installation embraces the meaning of “gifting” within Indigenous communities, where it signifies the giver’s success, abundance and ability to offer something of value.

In this way, “GIFT” prompts critical thinking about cultural perspectives and encourages more nuanced thinking about historic storytelling and mythmaking.

UMMA is also implicated in this essential process, as museums stand as stewards of cultural history and heritage. The use of the white clay slip and its slow dissolution signifies an invitation to dismantle the existing white-centric structures that guide many museum practices.

You’re welcome

“GIFT” is but one part of “Cannupa Hanska Luger: You’re Welcome,” Luger’s three-part project that examines the history of the land on which U-M sits and its relationship to broader dialogues about land sovereignty, colonialism, memorialization and the cultural perspectives of and implications for Indigenous communities.

Ozi Uduma, Cannupa Hanska Luger and Paul Farber, co-curators of “You’re Welcome”

The in-gallery exhibition of “You’re Welcome” creates a dynamic interplay between several of the artist’s sculptural installations and works selected from UMMA’s expansive collection.

The project also includes the Monument Lab: Public Classroom, which offers a space for dialogue and further contemplation of key themes within “You’re Welcome,” especially the central curatorial question: “How do we remember on this campus?”

“As we work together with our communities on creating relevant and meaningful artistic experiences, we necessarily need to examine how museums both produce and disseminate shared cultural history—both as it was once told and also as it is being retold today,” said UMMA Director Christina Olsen. “Our collaboration with Cannupa Hanska Luger allows us to reshape the narrative of a building central to our museum and to our campus to reflect a broader, more nuanced and more accurate history that embraces different perspectives and lifts up diverse cultural experiences.”

“GIFT” was commissioned by UMMA with support from the U-M Arts Initiative. “Cannupa Hanska Luger: You’re Welcome” is curated by Ozi Uduma, UMMA’s assistant curator of global contemporary art, and Paul Farber, director and co-founder of Monument Lab and curator-in-residence for the Arts Initiative. It will remain on view through Feb.18, 2024, and is free and open to the public.

Two Sides of the Coin: Endi Poskovic on “Arts & Resistance”

This year, the University of Michigan’s Arts Initiative presents the Fall 2023 Theme Semester: Arts & Resistance. The campus-wide engagement reflects how creativity and making can arise from oppression and destruction. Arts & Resistance has generated public performances, courses, lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and mini-grants for students.

One key figure in the semester is Stamps Professor Endi Poskovic, a renowned artist, printmaker, and educator. Poskovic will lead two workshops this fall: DIY Typography Workshop: Exploring Chipboard & Stencil in Printing and Towards Inclusive Practice: Japanese Papermaking Workshop. An exhibition of art glass by Polish 20^th-century artists and designers from his personal collection, Modernist Glass from the Polish Past, will also open at Weiser Hall on September 15.

Poskovic delves into his interpretation of the themed semester and how his practice plays a role. Read the full story over at Stamps.

MBGNA Work Propels $30M NSF Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science

The University of Michigan, in collaboration with the College of Menominee Nation, is set to play a pivotal role in the newly announced National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS): a five-year, $30 million international NSF Science and Technology Center based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The center will braid Indigenous knowledge systems with Western science to address some of the most pressing issues of our time.

CBIKS will work on complex, evolving challenges brought on by climate change, including dire impacts affecting land, water, plant, and animal life; the danger posed to irreplaceable archaeological sites, sacred places, and cultural heritage; and the challenges of changing food systems, all of which disproportionately affect Indigenous communities.

MBGNA Director Tony Kolenic shares, “Research and innovation – and arguably our democracy – are most productive when ways of knowing the world are actively in conversation with each other, growing new approaches and solutions to our shared challenges. Based on what Mi’kmaq peoples call ‘two-eyed seeing,’ the Center for Braided Indigenous Knowledges and Science does just that, and we couldn’t be prouder to serve alongside College of Menominee Nation to co-lead one of just eight global Hubs.”

CBIKS is structured according to Indigenous models of consensus decision-making and intergenerational learning and responsibility. The center’s team includes over 50 scientists — more than 30 of whom are world-leading Indigenous natural, environmental, and social scientists, representing Native American, First Nations, Métis, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native, Māori, and Aboriginal Australian peoples. Among the 40 partner organizations are 29 universities, two tribal colleges, five NGOs, two national museums, and two industry partners. CBIKS unifies and propels community- and place-based initiatives and research. It does so in partnership with institutions and 57 Indigenous communities in eight international “hubs’ ‘ in the U.S., Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Australia. Over the coming years, CBIKS intends to grow these partnerships to include additional Indigenous community partners and more regional hubs.

Among the key CBIKS regional leaders is David Michener, Curator at Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) and Mentor Faculty in the Public Engagement Faculty Fellowship contributing expertise in seed rematriation and Indigenous agricultural/plant sciences. Michener serves as one of the co-principal investigators and co-leads for the Midwest Hub, along with Jennifer Gauthier at the College of Menominee Nation. The Midwest Hub’s advisory group includes Kyle Whyte (UM-SEAS), who serves on the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council and who contributes expertise in climate policy ethics, and Megan Bang (at Northwestern) who brings expertise in Indigenous land-based PreK-12 grade education.

Read the full story at MGBNA.

Clare Croft to direct expanded arts research effort

Clare Croft, a dance historian, theorist and curator who has spearheaded national efforts to strengthen arts infrastructure, has been appointed to a new leadership position designed to expand and integrate the arts in faculty research across the University of Michigan.

Her three-year appointment as the university’s inaugural director of arts research / creative practice took effect Aug. 28.

The Arts Initiative, in partnership with the Office of the Vice President for Research, created the position as part of a broader effort to emphasize the value of the arts within the context of a leading public research university.

“As a scholar, teacher, audience member and dancer, I know firsthand that the arts are a field of study and inquiry that fosters critical, deliberative and imaginative thinking, and does so with an emphasis on collaboration, even care,” said Croft, associate professor of American culture and of women’s and gender studies in LSA, and associate professor of music in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

“The arts must be a crucial piece of life at a research university, as they bring what scientists might call new discoveries; what social scientists might call new perspectives; and what humanists might call new insights. I am excited to develop new funding programs and support systems to assist my fellow faculty members in deepening and elevating their work.”

Read the full story at The Record.

U-M Clements Library announces online access to popular Revolutionary War manuscript collection

ANN ARBOR—The University of Michigan William L. Clements Library has made available volumes 1-11 of the English Series of the Thomas Gage Papers.Thomas Gage was a famed British commander-in-chief in the decade leading up to the American Revolution and also the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1774 to 1775.

The papers are being digitized through a $350,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize over 23,000 items from one of the Clements Library’s largest and most utilized collections.

“Multiplying modes of access to our collections is one of our primary goals,” said Paul Erickson, the Randolph G. Adams Director of the Clements Library. “We will always remain committed to welcoming the many scholars who travel to Ann Arbor from around the world to do research in the Clements Library, but we are also committed to making it possible for people anywhere in the world to study landmark collections like the Gage papers.”

A premier destination for the study of 18th and 19th century American history, the Clements Library’s archive is particularly strong in their papers and artifacts related to the American Revolution.

“The Gage papers, which are one of the crown jewels of the Clements Library, have been studied by generation after generation of historians,” said Cheney J. Schopieray, curator of manuscripts at the Clements and project director. “They contain extraordinary documentation of colonial America through the paperwork of the highest echelons of British administration in the colonies during the tumultuous years leading up to the Revolutionary War.”

According to Schopieray, though there are materials related to the French and Indian War, the majority of the collection focuses on the years between 1763 and 1775. It includes handwritten letters, documents, journals, financial records, military orders and more.

“When you think of the flashpoints leading up to the American Revolution and independence—it’s all here,” he said. “There are materials on British-Native American relations, responses to the 1765 Stamp Act and nonimportation agreements, eyewitness accounts of the Boston Massacre, draft orders by Thomas Gage for the Concord Expedition—which led to the opening shots of the war—and an abundance of military and administrative activities. One very important and exciting aspect of the collection, however, is its documentation of everyday lives in colonial America. Gage’s papers contain evidence of women’s experiences and challenges; enslaved men, women, and children of African descent; local labor; and other aspects of life in 1760s-early 1770s America.”

In addition to the Gage manuscripts, the Clements Library is also home to papers of other high ranking British officials of that era, including Prime Minister William Petty 2nd Earl of Shelburne, General Henry Clinton, Secretary of State George Germain, Undersecretary William Knox, as well as patriots such as one of George Washington’s most effective officers, Nathanael Greene, among others.

The library’s project was one of 225 awarded nationwide in 2021 to support the preservation of historic collections, humanities exhibitions and documentaries, scholarly research and curriculum projects through the NEH’s Division of Preservation and Access.

Audiences can expect that additions will continue to be added to the archival collection site and the complete collection is expected to be available by May 2024, with support from the U-M Library’s Digital Content and Collections service. The public will be invited to assist in transcribing the papers in a remote crowd-sourcing project, making the papers fully searchable once complete.