乱伦强奸

In Review

FINE LINES: A digital humanities project is bringing together history students and retired volunteers to work with correspondence from the William Henry Seward Papers, like this page from an 1822 letter. (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

In an unusual cross-generation archival collaboration, volunteers from the Highlands at Pittsford鈥攁 University-based retirement community鈥攁nd students under the guidance of Thomas Slaughter, the Arthur R. Miller Professor of History, are joining forces to transcribe and annotate family papers from the William Henry Seward Papers. The collection of correspondence, legal papers, diaries, account books, and manuscript records of Abraham Lincoln鈥檚 secretary of state was bequeathed to the University by his grandson. Slaughter and his students are creating the Seward Family Digital Archive to provide a searchable public website with materials from 乱伦强奸鈥檚 collection鈥攖he University鈥檚 most frequently cited manuscript collection鈥攖he Seward House Museum in Auburn, New York, and a small private collection still held by the family. But reading handwritten script doesn鈥檛 come easily to the digital generation. So they鈥檙e partnering with retired volunteers for whom a letter written in cursive is familiar terrain. A letter from Lazette Miller Worden, sister of Seward鈥檚 wife, Frances, (above) shows the system of vertical and horizontal writing that correspondents in the period sometimes used 鈥渨hen they had a lot to say, ran out of paper, and wanted to get the letter in the next mail,鈥� Slaughter says.

鈥擪athleen McGarvey