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“I’m hoping that I can give this document to an organization that will take good care of it and allow other people to study and appreciate it.” These words, spoken by Jean Waite on an episode of PBS’s History Detective in 2012, prompted Hamilton’s Director of Special Collections Christian Goodwillie to place a call that, three years later, led to a donation to the college’s Communal Societies collection.

Symbols in the Wilderness: Early Masonic Survivals in Upstate New York, co-authored by Director of Special Collections Christian Goodwillie, began with a chance glance at a building as he drove to Cooperstown, N.Y. Intrigued by the structure, Western Star Lodge and now the Bridgewater Masonic Lodge, he became even more interested in the art work it once housed. Thus Goodwillie’s exploration of Masonic symbols – expressed in paintings, murals, textiles and graphics – began.  

A spring meeting with Everson Hull, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, and Hamilton students planning a service trip to Nevis resulted in yet another meeting and alliance between Alexander Hamilton’s birthplace and the college. During the March visit Hull met with Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives, to review documents from Hamilton’s Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection related to Nevis.

This summer KT Glusac ’17, working with Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack, will travel throughout New York State, living with and researching a variety of communal societies. Her research is funded through a Levitt Center grant.

The Central NY Library Resources Council (CLRC) recently awarded Hamilton funding to complete the digitization of the Beinecke Lesser Antilles manuscripts, part of the Burke Library’s Special Collections. The Beinecke Collection includes rare original documents, maps, plantation reports and correspondence, along with oil paintings and watercolors.

Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives in Burke Library, recently published “Baseball, Beards, Bands, and the Babes: Michigan’s House of David Religious Community” in Ephemera Journal, the quarterly publication of the Ephemera Society of America.

Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives in Burke Library, recently published “Baseball, Beards, Bands, and the Babes: Michigan’s House of David Religious Community” in Ephemera Journal, the quarterly publication of the Ephemera Society of America.

Initiated following her junior year, Leigh Gialanella’s Emerson Grant-funded summer project resulted in more than the usual final paper and presentation. Under the continuing guidance of Special Collections and Archives Director and Curator Christian Goodwillie, Gialanella ’15 has created an interactive website featuring the Oneida Community’s library, received the Communal Studies Association's Starting Scholar Award for her senior thesis, and begun a master’s degree at the University of Michigan in a tailored track that will lead to a career in digital libraries, digital archives, and/or digital asset management.

An interview with Shaker collector Stephen Miller in Antiques & the Arts Weekly included references to  Hamilton’s Director and Curator of Special Collections and Archives Christian Goodwillie and the Burke Library’s Communal Societies Special Collection. 

In the age of eReaders and online libraries, the story of books gets lost. Not the story within the book, which is arguably more permanent, but rather the story contained on its faded pages, in its stretched spine, on its battered covers. Hamilton’s Burke Library has an impressive selection of rare books and other special collections; of particular note are the Ezra Pound Archive and the abundance of Adirondack-related acquisitions. Christian Goodwillie, director and curator of Special Collections and Archives, is currently cataloguing a recently procured collection: The John Quinn and Jeanne Robert Foster Library, a generous gift from Jim and Carol McCord.