February 18, 2008
University offers Lincoln’s letters online
Abraham Lincoln’s private papers.
katie.perry@rochester.edu
Beginning appropriately on President’s Day,
scholars, students, and the merely curious can browse through Abraham
Lincoln’s private letters online through an innovative new program
that also puts University student in touch— literally—with
history.
The Lincoln project
(www.library.rochester.edu/
rbk/lincoln) features scanned letters and other Lincoln documents accompanied by typed transcriptions for easier reading. For some documents, graduate students will write contextual essays and lesson plans for teachers to facilitate the use of the documents as learning tools in their classrooms.
rbk/lincoln) features scanned letters and other Lincoln documents accompanied by typed transcriptions for easier reading. For some documents, graduate students will write contextual essays and lesson plans for teachers to facilitate the use of the documents as learning tools in their classrooms.
The collection of roughly 287 historical
documents––72 letters written by Lincoln, 215
written to Lincoln––are primarily from the papers of William
Henry Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state. The collection of family
letters and documents, including rare correspondence with Lincoln, was
bequeathed to the University by his grandson William Henry Seward III.
The Lincoln project is modeled after an online
cataloguing of Frederick Douglass materials, says Melissa Mead, manager of
the project and digital and visual resources librarian for Rare Books and
Special Collections. The Douglass Project
(www.library.rochester.edu/rbk/douglass), which began in 2001 and
is ongoing, also features images of the famous abolitionist and some of
the people with whom he corresponded, essays, lesson plans for elementary
and high school students, and links to other Douglass related Web sites.
Students studying history and other majors at the
University will have the opportunity to transcribe the Lincoln documents
and write the accompanying essays as they do for the Douglass project. Mead
says the undertaking serves a dual purpose. It gives the outside world
access to valuable documents in the University’s collection, but more
importantly, it gives the students a first hand experience with primary
documents from some of the nation’s most important figures.
“It’s really a research project since we
usually have the letters written (by Douglass and Lincoln) and not the
responses; we only have half the conversation. The letters are really a
jumping off point,” Mead says. “They need to use other primary
and secondary sources to fill in the blanks.”
She says working with the Lincoln documents is an
especially rare treat––afforded by the Seward
Collection––because first-hand presidential documents are often
out of reach. In some cases, the library holds the original drafts of
Lincoln’s papers while the U.S. Library of Congress holds copies made
by his secretary and others, Mead says.
Some of the letters and writings provide insight to
Lincoln’s attitudes toward slavery and the Civil War. In one
document, Lincoln writes to a senator about the idea of gradually
emancipating slaves with financial compensation for slave owners, says
Brian Fleming, the librarian who is heading up the Lincoln project. In
another, Lincoln ponders colonizing slaves.
“To be given a document that plunks you right
into a situation that Lincoln was facing, it’s very
compelling,” Fleming says.
The Douglass documents have the same feel. A
hand-written note from Douglass guiding a fugitive slave to safety through
the Underground Railroad conveys the drama of the situation: “My Dear
Mrs. Post: Please shelter this sister from the house of bondage till five
O’Clock—this afternoon —She will then be sent on to the
land of freedom. Yours Truly – Fredk”
The stains of the paper are still visible, and it is
easy to imagine the note pressed in the palm of someone pursued and
afraid––someone seeking shelter.
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