After graduating from Union College in 1848, William James Stillman worked as an artist, diplomat, and historian, but is best known as a journalist and photographer who served for several decades as a correspondent for the London Times in the Balkans, Greece, and Italy. He also edited the first American art journal, The Crayon, and wrote essays and a number of books. The bulk of the Stillman materials at Union, donated by his son Michael in 1959, is described in the Catalogue of the William James Stillman Collection by Frances Miller (Friends of the Union College Library, 1974). Additional materials were donated by Michael in the same year.