Linda Thayer Guilford papers

The L. T. Guilford Papers consist of correspondence, writings, an autograph album, memorabilia, and biographical information. Most of the material consists of letters written by Guilford during her time as a student at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, correspondence and writings relating to the writing and publication of her book "The Use of a Life," and copies of books and articles written by Guilford. Her letters written while at Mount Holyoke, 1845-1847, contain detailed accounts of her life at the school. She describes her coursework and examinations, domestic work, daily schedule, room, expenses, sickness among students, rules, going to see a famous "Native American," and a picnic with Amherst College students. She also writes of traveling to Mount Holyoke and meeting the principal, Mary Lyon, a teacher, Abigail Moore Burgess, and her roommate, Alzina V. Pixley Rood. She discusses the marriage of a teacher, Susan Reed, to William Howard, missionary meetings, and the authors Catharine Esther Beecher and Lydia Howland Sigourney. The letters include quotations from Mary Lyon's talks and a poem. The collection contains a sketch and article by Guilford about her benefactor and teacher Frances L. Greene (later Mrs. Henry Bagg). There are also several unpublished writings relating to "The Use of a Life" (her biography of Zilpah P. Grant Banister), a short speech regarding Guilford's experience at Mount Holyoke and a copy of "The Story of a Cleveland School," her 1890 acount of her work as a teacher in Ohio. The collection also includes an autograph album with signatures from her Mount Holyoke classmates and notes about their deaths, a memorial sketch about Guilford published in 1912 by several of her classmates, an obituary, a formal photograph dated circa 1847, and a slide of the photograph.