New Collection: Justin Morrill Letters to UVM President Matthew Buckham.
We are excited to announce our newest digital collection, Justin Morrill Letters to UVM President Matthew Buckham, featuring a series of letters written by Morrill to Buckham in the last part of the 19th century. Morrill (1810-1898) was a US Representative (1855-1867) and Senator (1867-1898) from Vermont and the lead author of the Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890. With the establishment of the State Agricultural College at the University of Vermont in 1865, Morrill became a trustee of the University, a position he held until his death in 1898.
Matthew Buckham (1832-1910) became President of the University in 1871 and continued in this role until his death in 1910. Morrill and Buckham were frequent correspondents and eighty-two of Morrill’s letters to Buckham are digitized and transcribed in this collection. The letters discuss the agricultural college, military instruction, intrastate competition with Middlebury and Norwich, Vermont legislation such as the 1890 “divorce bill” which would have separated the State Agricultural College from the University, and the academic progress of Morrill’s son James at the University.
The letters were transcribed by Ingrid Bower, Erin Doyle, Hannah Johnson, and Sharon Thayer during the summer of 2020 when Special Collections staff were working remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Vermont Green Mountain Digital Archive Joins Digital Public Library of America!
Welcome to Our New Digital Collections Site!