Collections

Godfrey Memorial Library repository description

The records, which document the corporate life of the Gold Hill Miners Union, contain the constitution and by-laws (1885), minutes of the union meetings (1883-1925), financial records (1866-1923), committee records (1885-1914), membership records (1881-1921), legal papers (1896-1923), and other union papers (1899-1922). The records are incomplete.

The papers consist of correspondence, research memoranda, addresses, publications, and miscellaneous biographical material of Goldie Krantz, an active proponent of prepaid dental and medical care. In addition, there are records concerning the Welfare Fund of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, the Pacific Maritime Association, and the Group Health Association. Memoranda and other papers related to her work as a researcher and consultant in evaluating health care plans in various parts of the United States are also included. These papers form part of the Contemporary Medical Care and Health Policy Collection.

The Goldie Russler and Abraham Burstein Papers consist of personal and professional records of American Yiddish theater actress Goldie Russler (1904-1997) and her husband Abraham Burstein (1900-1992) from circa 1900-1992.

This collection encompasses accessions of single letters and small groups of letters and other manuscripts, pertaining to the California Gold Rush, which the library has chosen to group and list as an artificial collection. Letters discuss voyages to the Pacific coast, including journeys through Panama; mining life in California; the inhabitants of California, including Mormons; vigilance committees in San Francisco; and the establishment of a police force in Nevada City, California. Some letters include pictorial letterheads.

The papers consist of correspondence, business and legal documents, sermons, lectures, and other writings of the Goodrich family, descendants of Elizur Goodrich (1734-1797), and members of related Webster, Coe, Ellsworth, and Fowler families. The bulk of the correspondence concerns Chauncey Allen Goodrich's publication and copyright of an abridgement and revision of Webster's dictionary and the resulting disagreements among the heirs of Noah Webster. The papers also highlight Elizur Goodrich's (1761-1849) investments in land; family courtships, including that of Noah Webster and Rebecca Greenleaf; the ministerial careers of Elizur Goodrich (1734-1797), Noah Coe, Chauncey Goodrich (1817-1868), and William Henry Goodrich; Chauncey Allen Goodrich's teaching at Yale; Henry L. Ellsworth's purchases of land in Indiana; and the domestic affairs of several family households.

Ken Bloom, a distinguished theatre historian, playwright, director, record producer, author, and member of the Goodspeed Library Advisory Board consulted with Education Manager and Library Director, Joshua Ritter, to select items to add to the Priority Archive. These valuable items, more than 500 total, include a full original partitur for "West Side Story", a recording of Steven Sondheim performing "Saturday Night", and signed books and letters from countless Broadway legends.

Legal records and a photograph of the Goodwin family from Waterbury, Connecticut. The Goodwin family of carriage and wagon-makers owned the Charles F. and G. H. Goodwin Carriage Shop and Factory in Waterbury in the 1880s.

Papers of the Goodyear family of Connecticut of whom the principal figures are Edward Bassett Goodyear of Naugatuck, Ellsworth D. S. Goodyear, a Civil War general, and Watson Andrews Goodyear, a geologist.The papers of Edward B. Goodyear contain extensive family correspondence including forty-three letters written between 1855 and 1872 by his mother, Esther M. Bassett Goodyear. His papers also contain autobiographical notes and financial documents. Ellsworth D.S. Goodyear, who was a Civil War general is represented by diaries, including one (1863-1865) in the Civil War period and reminiscences. There is also a diary kept by F. Wilbur Goodyear while he was imprisoned in Andersonville. The papers of Watson Andrews Goodyear contain geological reports on various sites in the West (1865-1873) and an account of a series of earthquakes in El Salvador (1879-1880).