{"id":369492,"date":"2019-03-28T15:43:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T19:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=369492"},"modified":"2019-03-29T11:19:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T15:19:19","slug":"celebrating-60-anniversary-alaska-statehood-sewards-folly-369492","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/celebrating-60-anniversary-alaska-statehood-sewards-folly-369492\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating 60 years of \u2018Seward’s Folly\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1927, an Aleut teenager\u201413-year-old John Bell Benson\u2014won a competition by the Alaska Department of the American Legion with his design idea for an Alaskan flag. Chosen for its\u00a0simple look of the Big Dipper and North Star, this particular example is now part of the University\u2019s William Henry Seward Papers.<\/a><\/p>\n

Time to celebrate: this month, 152 years ago, the Russian Empire sold its Alaskan territory to the United States for $7 million\u2014a bargain at roughly 2 cents an acre. It was Seward, a prominent New York politician and secretary of state to Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, who negotiated the Alaska purchase. The acquisition on March 30, 1867, was ridiculed at the time in Congress and the press as \u201cSeward\u2019s Folly\u201d and \u201cSeward\u2019s Ice Box.\u201d Sixty years ago, on January 3, 1959, Alaska became the 49th state of the Union, making it a diamond jubilee of sorts.<\/p>\n

Not only did Seward have the last laugh, his papers and ephemera today form one of the most frequently accessed collections at the University\u2019s Department of\u00a0Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation<\/a>, where they have become an important resource for scholars and students of 19th-century America.<\/p>\n

\n

Read more about Seward at Rochester<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
\"gold
\nThe myth\u2014and memorabilia\u2014of Seward\u2019s Folly<\/a>
\nTake a visual tour of just some of the items in the William Seward collection at Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation.<\/span><\/div>\n
\"two
\nSeward Family Digital Archive project tops $1 million<\/a>
\nThe project brings together students in the humanities and computer science with retired volunteers to help transcribe the thousands of Seward family letters written in Victorian-era cursive handwriting.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Alaskan flag, with its simple Big Dipper and North star design, was the winning entry submitted by a 13-year-old Aleut boy, John Bell Benson, for a competition by the Alaska Department of the American Legion. 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