Last week, AAS reader Jeanne McDougall introduced us to the Weld family. Today, she continues exploring the mother and daughter pair, and examines their relationship and personalities through Hannah's letter. During the closing days of February 1799, Hannah would have had every reason to wish her daughter back home with her in Boston rather than far-off, ...
Over the winter, AAS reader Jeanne McDougall spent some time with our Isaiah Thomas manuscript collection. While searching through the correspondence, she stumbled upon a letter from Hannah Weld to her daughter Mary Weld, who married Isaiah Thomas Jr. Below, Jeanne describes her encounter with Hannah and Mary. Jeanne's experience certainly demonstrates the serendipitous nature ...
...a young man named Henry L. Joslin, from Fitchburg, Massachusetts, was writing home to his mother on September 24th. Henry, born in 1843, was serving in the Civil War and was working picket duty in Poolsville. In his letter he describes his camp, what guard duty was like, and gives updates about his health, and other young ...
Dear Past is Present readers, Anyone who has an email account is by now all too familiar with the forwarded email, as well as the accompanying guilt-laden demands to keep forwarding it. The promise: just forward this email to 20 of your closest friends and you will be happy, or rich, or blessed. The threat: vague but ominous ...
Tuckerman, Sophia May. Letters, 1841-1857. Sophia May (1784-1870) was the daughter of Col. John May (whose jaunty portrait in military uniform hangs in the AAS reading room) and his wife Abigail, who was also his cousin. Sophia May married Edward Tuckerman (1775-1843). AAS has a business letterbook of Edward Tuckerman’s firm of Tuckerman and Rogers. Among ...
An earlier post about bibliographies on everything from the California Gold Rush to tomatoes got me wondering about the impetus behind that heady experience (the Gold Rush, not the tomatoes). How did a man who heard all the fairy-tale stories of incredible wealth just waiting to be picked out of the rivers make the difficult ...
These days you would be more likely to encounter a young child e-mailing or texting than writing a letter to a family correspondent. Many believe that letter writing is a lost art in the digital age. It is certainly romanticized in films and books but in the 19th century household correspondence was an ...
