All posts by Ellen Maxwell

About Ellen Maxwell

Ellen joined the NEHGS staff with over 20 years of publishing experience, working most of this time as a design and production manager. With experience in student and teacher books, early readers, textbooks and trade books, along with interests in typography, art history and photo manipulation, she is putting her talents to work for Newbury Street Press and other publications at NEHGS.

Our family album

As we close out our 175th anniversary year, I was struck by the wealth of our own history as I worked along with Cécile Engeln on The Family Album: A Visual History of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1845–2020. I have been an employee of NEHGS for only four years, so I didn’t really know many of the details about our past history myself. Continue reading Our family album

‘May sunshine ever stream’

My great-aunt Anna. Click on the images to expand them.

Among the family photos, letters, and other memorabilia that my mother passed on to me are a group of Valentine’s Day cards sent to my great-aunt, Anna E. Johnson (1896–1990), who received them from her classmates at Hopewell School in Scott County, Iowa, in the early 1900s. When she sent them to my mother she said that she was sending these among others in her collection because “I thought these were the lacy ones.” Indeed, my mother and I found them so special that they remain family treasures today. Continue reading ‘May sunshine ever stream’