Middlebury College Special Collections

Middlebury College Special Collections Special Collections serves as a research laboratory for students, faculty, administration/staff, alumni, the Middlebury community, and independent scholars

We welcome researchers to explore our collections of rare books, archives, manuscripts, photographs, audio and video recordings, and other rare and unique materials that tell the story of our collective past. Our major collections are broad in scope and include the Julian W. Abernethy Collection of American Literature, the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, and the Middlebury College Archives.

Welcome back Reunion classes 1’s and 6’s! Special Collections is open today and tomorrow from 11am to 3pm with artifacts...
06/05/2026

Welcome back Reunion classes 1’s and 6’s! Special Collections is open today and tomorrow from 11am to 3pm with artifacts from College history as well as items from our rare book collection.
Pictured here, the 50th and 25th reunion classes: graduates of 1976 and 2001 when they first arrived on campus! Stop by to find yourselves in the archives!

It’s National Cheese Day! 🧀 This recipe for “Italian Cheese” from a 1777 English manuscript is easy enough to follow and...
06/04/2026

It’s National Cheese Day! 🧀 This recipe for “Italian Cheese” from a 1777 English manuscript is easy enough to follow and would likely result in a sort of drunken ricotta. Try it out and make Mary Penelope Bedord (the primary author of this cookbook) proud! Be sure to “ornament it with orange or flowers or anything you think pretty” to truly celebrate this important holiday.

Celebrate World Bicycle Day with this classic photo of President Hamlin and a group of students (and bicycles! and a dog...
06/03/2026

Celebrate World Bicycle Day with this classic photo of President Hamlin and a group of students (and bicycles! and a dog!) outside Old Chapel from 1885. 🚲 We're grateful modern bikes are easier to mount than the penny-farthing velocipedes pictured in this photo!

Today we share a look at William “Bill” Matthews’ egg, one of many included in ON EGGS-HIBIT, which you can come see in ...
06/02/2026

Today we share a look at William “Bill” Matthews’ egg, one of many included in ON EGGS-HIBIT, which you can come see in the Davis Family Library Atrium now! Across the bottom of this egg, Nancy Willard pasted the full text of Matthews’ “Fireworks” poem, first published in 1992. Around the text, the egg’s surface features a collage of jazz musicians and photographs of Matthews. 🎆🎇

Blue marbled beauty for this week's from La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri, translated and illustrated with photogravur...
05/29/2026

Blue marbled beauty for this week's from La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri, translated and illustrated with photogravures after paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1907.

We were delighted to receive this recently-donated photograph of some of Middlebury's earliest women students. Pictured ...
05/28/2026

We were delighted to receive this recently-donated photograph of some of Middlebury's earliest women students. Pictured here are May Belle Chellis, Class of 1886; May Anna Bolton, Class of 1887; Mattie Janes; Hattie Mead (possibly Harriet Mead, special student at Middlebury, 1884-1887); and Marcia [Linedley?].

Up next in photos recently added to our online collections is Middlebury Golf!For more Middlebury Athletics images, chec...
05/27/2026

Up next in photos recently added to our online collections is Middlebury Golf!

For more Middlebury Athletics images, check out https://archive.org/details/middleburyathletics

📸 dates:
1. 1962
2. 19xx
3. 19xx
4. 1972
5. 1982
6. 1988
7. 1985

Today we share a closer look at an egg featured in ON EGGS-HIBIT and on display now in the Davis Family Library Atrium. ...
05/26/2026

Today we share a closer look at an egg featured in ON EGGS-HIBIT and on display now in the Davis Family Library Atrium. This is Rosellen Brown’s egg, and features clippings from her writing and an interview excerpt in which Brown promises Dan Quale will not like her upcoming Before and After as “it doesn’t have a clean, upbeat, family values kind of ending.” Before and After was published in 1992. 🖤

For Memorial Day 90 years ago, students involved in the Middlebury Peace Council organized a Memorial Day Peace Parade f...
05/25/2026

For Memorial Day 90 years ago, students involved in the Middlebury Peace Council organized a Memorial Day Peace Parade from the Soldiers Monument opposite the Town Hall to the West Cemetery. Read the text of the flyer (photo 1) below, and see the May 27, 1936 "Middlebury Campus" article (photo 2).


MEMORIAL DAY 1936
Eight million five hundred thousand men of all nations were killed in the last war. Tomorrow America will commemorate their sacrifice; not only to America but to all nations. At the same time the question will arise; Have they died in vain?

The answer lies in us: the students, workers, professionals and veterans united in a common front against the war-makers, prejudice, yellow journalism and political leaders who will not lead. Memorial Day is an opportunity to express that the unity of thought in action by showing the peoples of the world, who also morn their dead, that their dead and our own have not and will not be betrayed.

Memorial Day 1936 has thus a deeper significance than heretofore. The issues are plain: a demonstration of solidarity on our part with the soldier dead who fought our fight. It is this solidarity alone which can ever check the war-mongers and reactionaries who vote ever larger war budgets in the midst of starvation; who instigate loyalty oaths and military training. It is this demonstration of unity alone which can turn into action the words and sentiment for Peace of the mass of students workers and professionals and serve as another blow in the struggle of the people for Peace.

Saturday, May 30 at 9:00 A.M. the Memorial Day Peace Parade will form at the Soldiers Monument opposite the Town Hall and march to the West Cemetary. Rev. Raymond Hall will speak on "The Significance of Memorial Day"; while Emory Hebard '38 will give the student's viewpoint.

The High School, Graded School, Rutland Fife and Drum Corps and the Town Band will participate– THE COLLEGE MUST SHOW ITS RECOGNITION OF THE ISSUES AND LEADERSHIP IN THIS STRUGGLE BY FULL PARTICIPATION. Buttons and armbands will be worn.
MIDDLEBURY PEACE COUNCIL
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE JOINT PEACE COMMITTEE.

Address

110 Storrs Avenue
Middlebury, VT
05753

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+18024432387

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