A Man of Many Parts: The Life and Legacy of Francis Willey Kelsey

As a professor at Michigan, Kelsey used numerous objects of ancient daily life in class to give his students of Greek and Latin a vivid sense of the world in which the ancient authors had lived. Such ordinary objects were not normally shown in art museums.

Walter Dennison, one of Kelsey's students and later a professor, contributed (among other things) floor tiles, lamps, forceps, and hairpins. Another of Kelsey's students, the pioneering archaeologist Esther Van Deman, specialized in Roman construction techniques. She bequeathed brick fragments, marble molding, concrete samples, along with other items such as jewelry and cymbals.

The mill and other tools were uncovered by Vincenzo de Prisco, a former member of the Italian Parliament who was well known in Italy for his excavations and sales of antiquities. Kelsey acquired the mill and the other farm tools for $400, including packing and transportation costs. Adjusted for inflation this price would equal about $4,800 today. Kelsey hoped that the grain mill and farm tools would one day be displayed in a new museum at Michigan. He doubted whether anything in this museum "would interest the general public more" than this assemblage, which allowed viewers to "understand or realize the progress of civilization upon the mechanical side." A donation from Michigan alum G. Frank Allmendinger of the Michigan Milling Company of Ann Arbor and the Michigan State Millers' Association facilitated Kelsey's acquisition of the mill and farm tools.

Hima Mallampati