Digital Newberry

Digital collections, resources, and crowdsourcing projects from the Newberry Library in Chicago 🧑‍💻

[digitalnewberry]

Patricia’s Self-Help Grimoire Has Entered the Chat

We were watching Widow’s Bay when Patricia’s self-help book took a distinctly occult turn—and suddenly looked very familiar.

The Newberry’s “Book of magical charms” has entered the chat.

Coincidence? Probably. But the grimoire energy is undeniable.

- NL111O1R Some watermarks visible (chalice and grapes?) but tightness of the binding makes identification difficult.

[digitalnewberry]

Every Diary Has a Secret. Some Get Solved.

She Called Herself "the Lone Old Woman." We Finally Know Her Name.

For years, one of the diaries in the Newberry’s collections sat without an author. The cover notation described it simply as “1880 Diary of a woman from San Jose, Ill., purchased at Greenview 1988.” Inside, her handwriting was careful, her voice vivid — and her identity a mystery.

Then two volunteers, working independently and unknown to each other, cracked it at the same time.

Emily La Framboise and Sheila Carter-Hart both contacted us in April with the same answer: the woman in the diary is Sarah B. Withers of Bloomington, Illinois — widow, philanthropist, world traveler, and one of the most fascinating figures to emerge from Newberry Transcribe yet.

Two Detectives, One Answer

Emily came to the mystery from the inside out. Part of an online community called the Diary Detectives, Emily figured out that the daughter Sarah addressed as “Jessa” was Jessamine; in the handwriting, the name could easily look like “Pepa” or “Papa.” Another clue came when Sarah marked the anniversary of her husband Allen’s death and remembered the place where they had married 44 years earlier.

Then came the lightbulb moment. On June 3, 1880, Sarah wrote that Tom Welch had invited her to travel to Europe with him: “oh my patience how it excited me,” she wrote. “I wrote Tom that I would go.” Emily found a newspaper notice saying that a Mrs. Withers planned to travel to Europe with Mr. Welch — and the departure date matched the diary.

Sheila took a different route, following names in the transcript until she connected Sarah’s son-in-law, John Winter, to the wider family. She also contacted the Bloomington Historical Museum, which confirmed the identification and noted that its collection includes another Sarah Withers diary.

Reading Between the Lines

Once the diarist had a name, the entries came into focus. Sarah wrote nearly every day: about letters, church, illness, weather, French lessons, Turkish baths, loneliness, and home. During her travels, she recorded visits across Europe. On the return voyage, she wrote movingly about three babies who died at sea, grieving for the mothers who “could not have imagined this would be the end of their journey.”

The diary also holds harder histories. Sarah writes often about Henry, a man connected to the Withers household. Emily’s research found that Sarah and Allen had purchased Henry as a child while living in Missouri; after the family moved to Illinois, Henry was free but remained close to the family. The diary preserves that complicated intimacy — affection alongside the brutal facts of slavery.

A Life Worth Knowing

Sarah’s later life left a civic legacy. Her will helped fund a library in Bloomington, another in Jessamine County, Kentucky, a children’s park with no “keep off the grass” signs, and a home for aged and indigent women named for Jessamine. She also left money to the local AME church in Henry’s name.

Both diary volumes are marked complete in Newberry Transcribe, but Emily hopes to keep revisiting them, filling in words earlier transcribers couldn’t decipher. That, too, is part of the work: not just finishing a transcription, but returning to it with sharper eyes.

Together, Emily and Sheila turned an unidentified diary into a life story — and gave a woman who once called herself “the lone old woman” her name back.

Browse the diary — or read it with transcriptions by clicking "Image w/ Text" and paging through with the arrows.

[digitalnewberry]

When cursive meets history

A recent New York Times article on the return of cursive clubs points to a problem that many archivists, librarians, teachers, and researchers know well: when students don’t learn cursive, they lose access to a huge part of the historical record.

At the Newberry, we think about this all the time. So much of our collective past is handwritten: letters, diaries, drafts, notes, recipes, ledgers, marginalia. Some of it is famous. Most of it is not. But all of it can tell us something about how people lived, worked, and wrote.

That’s where Newberry Transcribe comes in.

Every page transcribed by volunteers becomes easier to search, read, and use. A letter that once required patience, practice, and a good eye for nineteenth-century handwriting can become discoverable to a student, a teacher, a genealogist, a researcher, or a curious reader halfway across the world.

And we’ve just added a new batch: 700 pages from the Sherwood Anderson papers.

Anderson is best known for Winesburg, Ohio, his 1919 story cycle about small-town life, loneliness, ambition, and the ache of wanting something more. More than a century later, readers and writers are still finding themselves in it. In a recent Guardian interview, novelist Lily King remembered reading Winesburg, Ohio as a teenager and recognizing something of herself in Anderson’s young observer, George Willard. The book, she said, helped make her own desire to become a writer feel possible.

That’s one of the lovely things about manuscript collections: they let us see literature before, after, and around the finished book. We encounter drafts, correspondence, notes, revisions, friendships, professional networks, and the ordinary business of a writer’s life. A handwritten page can feel surprisingly close, even when it’s a century old.

But first, someone has to read it.

By transcribing the Sherwood Anderson papers, volunteers help make these materials available to everyone: students encountering Anderson for the first time, scholars studying American literature, teachers looking for primary sources, or readers curious about the life and work behind the books.

→ Transcribe now

[digitalnewberry]

A Shipwreck Story, Hidden in a Love Letter

What can you find in a century-old love letter? The usual things: longing, gossip, travel plans, family news. And, sometimes, a shipwreck mystery.

In April 1910, Chicago native Muriel Bent was writing to Stanley Gale Harris from a ship in the Red Sea. She had so much to tell him that she split the letter into several envelopes, numbered in the corners so he’d know which to read first. Muriel told Stanley about the heat, her reading, her costume for that evening’s shipboard fancy-dress party — “improvised and mostly perishable” — and how happy she was to be getting closer to him.

Then, almost in passing, she shared a story she’d heard from another passenger:

In a shipwreck near the Aroe Islands off Northern Australia, nearly everyone was drowned. The Captain and pilot escaped in a boat, and thirty hours later picked up two young girls who had been floating all that time. One of the girls had found and saved a baby that drifted near her. They were all taken to Thursday Island where every effort was made to identify the child. But none was entered on the passenger list of the steamer and nothing about her was found. She was adopted by the wife of the head of one of the big companies, and brought up as their daughter. She is about my age now, and went to school with Mr. Williams’ older daughter. Fancy knowing nothing about yourself like that.  — View letter

The story Muriel heard was almost certainly a retelling of the wreck of the RMS Quetta, which sank in the Torres Strait near Thursday Island in 1890. Contemporary reports preserve the same haunting central detail: among the few women and children who survived was a baby girl whose identity was uncertain. She was adopted and raised in Queensland, becoming known as Cecil “Quetta” Brown.

Muriel’s version gets the geography a little wrong — the Aru, or Aroe, Islands are northwest of Australia, while the Quetta sank near Thursday Island — but that only makes the letter more revealing. This is how stories traveled: by ship, by rumor, by memory, and eventually by mail. A disaster from 1890 could still be circulating twenty years later, transformed into a shipboard anecdote and tucked into a love letter.

We just added 1,200 pages from the Harris-MacLean family papers to Newberry Transcribe — including the letters between Muriel and Stanley, written during their courtship and early married life. Volunteers have now worked through more than 95,000 pages of handwritten material across all our collections, making them searchable and available to researchers, teachers, family historians, and anyone who’s ever wanted to eavesdrop on the past.

Start transcribing: nt.newberry.org

Muriel Bent Harris, early 1910s. Harris-MacLean family papers

[digitalnewberry]

My own darling: Letters from a railroad telegraph operator to his sweetheart; Illinois and Kansas, 1878-1881

by Rebecca Rector, Newberry Transcribe volunteer transcriber

Background: Alexander (Zannie) Heflin was born in Illinois in 1853, son of Andreas (Andrew) von Hoefeln (later Heflin) & Charlotte Fischer who were both born in Germany. Andrew was a farmer and blacksmith. The family continued to use their German language, as Andrew’s 1881 will (listed on Ancestry.com) was translated into English. 

Zannie was working on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad as a telegraph operator in 1878 when he began writing to his girl Jessie Beathard living in Kingston Mines, Peoria, Illinois. These letters are in the Hoefeln family collection at Newberry Library. Other letters in the collection are written in German from family members in Germany.

The word telegraph, from the Greek words for “distant” and “to write”, was developed in the 1830’s by Samuel Morse. The duties as a telegraph operator were many. They not only transmitted messages using Morse code but had to keep accurate records and often managed train routing which enabled trains to run safely. They also managed Western Union messages and sometimes arranged shipments for local farmers and merchants. His first letter to Jessie in the collection mentions how busy he is and that the work is demanding – “for a single mistake has grave consequences.”

The Letters: A Glimpse Into Their Lives Zannie’s letters to Jessie contain a mix of news about his work, the weather, opera concerts and sleigh rides in his spare time, and asking about family members at home. He sometimes mentions the Indians he sees on the trains, once describing them as “living curiosities.”  

Jessie plays the piano, so he often sends her sheet music. In June 1878 he writes: “Glad you will get a Piano think it necessary that you should have one ie; if you intend teaching the art so you practice on that other piano too (Washboard) ha! ha!”. He loves to joke with her!

Zannie usually addresses Jessie as “Jessie Mine” or “My own darling” and ends his letters with auf wiedersehen or au revoir, or sometimes “your lonely boy.”  He sometimes chides her for not writing as much as he does, like this letter of October 11,1878: “You must not take measure from mine for what I lack in quality I make up in numbers I've written you a dozen (more or less) to your one Now ta! ta' - Zan.”  

What is intriguing about his letters is that they are peppered with slang expressions and contractions, popular in the 19th century - such as t’wer and t’wont. He also uses telegraph codes such as “73” which means goodbye or best regards, and “13” which means I understand. He ends one letter in 1879 with “Well …darling & do take better care o' yourself   Zannie "73" to folks.”

In January 1879 while working as a clerk and manager of Western Union in southern Kansas, he soon begins to discuss future plans with her. In April, he writes – “darling I would like your candid opinion of our project - the climate is satisfactory the people so far as I have seen pleasant & agreeable but I know what a trial it will be for my darling to be separated from her friends…for I would much rather live contentedly on a small salary in Illinois, with my little wife than to make oceans of ducats (gold coins) - & see her distant and lonely.”  

But he is often lonely too! That July he injures his toe when a brandy keg fell on it and says - “am almost sorry 'taint worse for if 'twere would have good excuse for lay off & then could go see my darling oh I do want to see you so much.”

October finds him asking her what “Gretna Green” means, which she must have mentioned. Gretna Greens were places to elope, away from home where there were no restrictions. There were several “Gretna Green” towns in Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio. He is hoping to get the job of  Assistant Agent on the MKT (Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway) at a better salary, writing: “have patience My darling I will be with you just as soon as I possibly can - for I want to see my darling so much”  He mentions that the railroad has lots of work, but not enough staff –“ Oh! how I wish I were in some business of my own where I would not be dependent on a heartless Railroad Co .“  

Although he said in April that he would be content to live in Illinois, that December (1879) Zannie writes: “think we can be much happier out here (Kansas) at small town constantly enjoying each other’s society dont you? - now pet cheer up - 'tis always darkest 4 dawn -& remember, your boy is to be with you before the holidays.”   

In early 1880 he asks her to “make a great sacrifice – to come away out here where all are strangers but one & into a new & wild country so far away from all but one friends…I will do all I can to make it pleasant and agreeable for you…”     In March he talks about leasing land, joking that if she doesn’t like Kansas, they can move to Indian Territory. And he writes - “you will of course say nothing of this to anyone till I can get matters into shape…” He is also in a quandary about his work and asks her if he should quit railroading. This letter is signed “your anxious boy”.

 Marriage and Family  Zannie and Jessie married on June 15,1880 in Peoria, Illinois, according to their marriage record on Ancestry.com. They apparently settled in Arkansas City, Kansas. A year later, in June 1881, a notice appeared in the Arkansas City Traveler stating “We regret to learn that A.C. Heflin, the gentlemanly operator at the Santa Fe depot intends to return east to reside. This step is rendered necessary by the delicate state of Mrs. Heflin’s health…will be better for her to be among relatives.”  Zannie was frequently concerned about Jessie’s health in his letters.

On August 6,1881, a short notice appeared in the Evening Peorian, stating that A.C. Heflin (he was sometimes called Alexander Charles Heflin) of Washington, Illinois was appointed as station agent at Gardner (Illinois) on the Chicago & Alton Railroad. Jessie was apparently still with her family, as Zannie continued to write to her. One letter begins “To "My own Darling" (dont that remind you of old times) Arrived safe & sound at noon today found everything as we left it at the house. think I can make arrangement to sell house…” This is probably their house in Kansas.

The years passed, and by 1900 he had quit railroading to become a successful dry goods merchant. They were now living in Evans, Marshall Co., Illinois with four children: Pearl 17 (born 1883), Charlotte F. 15, Paul B. 13, and May E. 9.  By 1910 they were in nearby Wenona, where Zannie was still in the dry goods business. Zannie, Jessie and two of their daughters visited Heflin relatives in Germany, according to the Streator Daily Free Press (Illinois) of June 20, 1913.

Besides his business, Zannie invested in farmland in western Kansas. From the Barton County Democrat (Great Bend, Kansas), May,1915: “A.A. Heflin is in town looking over his land interests… after visiting his farms in Kansas he will return to Wenona. Last year his Kansas farms produced 30,000 bushels of wheat.”

Around 1920 Zannie and Jessie retired to Albuquerque, New Mexico. He continued to visit his land investments in Kansas. Zannie died in Albuquerque in 1926 and was buried back in Wenona, Illinois. Jessie and daughter Pearl continued to live in Albuquerque. Sadly, Jessie died in a car accident there in September 1940 and was also buried in Wenona. Her obituary in the Albuquerque Tribune stated, “She had resided here for the past 26 years and was a member of the First Methodist Church.”

Zannie and Jessie built a full life together, communicating continually over long distances while he worked on the railroad during their courtship days.

Want to read the letters for yourself? The Heflin [née Hofeln] family collection is part of Newberry Transcribe, where volunteers like Rebecca help bring documents like these to life. Explore the collection →

Inspired to transcribe? Rebecca's work on these letters is a great example of what our volunteers discover when they sit down with a historical document. You don't need any special skills — just curiosity. Start transcribing →

[digitalnewberry]

"Soldiers never did better than the Colored Soldiers today."

Soldiers’ diaries constitute a significant portion of the Newberry’s Civil War collections. Featured here are pages from one of forty-four pocket diaries in the papers of Iowan Hiram Scofield (1830–1906). In addition to these, which cover the years 1857 to 1906, the Scofield holdings include some letters and miscellaneous items.

Born in New York, Scofield moved west in the early 1850s as a young lawyer and by 1857 had opened an office in Washington, Iowa. After the first shots of the war were exchanged at the battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina, in April 1861, Scofield enlisted in the Union Army as a private and was assigned to Company H of the 2nd Iowa Infantry. His 1862 diary documents his rise through the ranks, the daily life of an officer, the weather, his health, and his reading and relaxation activities.

The Newberry was especially interested in acquiring Scofield’s diaries because, from 1863 to 1866, he commanded the 8th Louisiana Regiment Infantry (African Descent) of Colored Troops (later renamed the 47th U.S. Colored Regiment Infantry). The diaries from this time provide a fascinating account of an African American regiment from the perspective of a white commander. While stationed at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863, Scofield wrote of his first days with the Colored Troops:

May 3: “a meeting with my Regiment—I made a little talk to them which was well received.”

May 4: “boats unloaded and the families sent down to Plantation. Dr. Thornton has been examining the men preparatory to being mustered in. The muster rolls are being made and I fear I shall lack a few men.”

May 24: “2 boys buried today, a good deal of sickness.”

May 25: “Had our first Battalion drill today—the Regiment did remarkably well.”

June 25: “Today the rebels appeared in still larger numbers burning plantations and running off the Negroes.”

Dec. 2: “received some bad—very bad—mush today which we made a fuss about.”

Scofield’s diaries depict the daily activities of his regiment in 1864 and 1865, when it played a major role in the capture of Fort Blakely, Alabama, and the fall of Mobile. On April 9, 1865, the day Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Scofield and his troops overwhelmed the defenses of Fort Blakely. He noted in his diary, “Quiet until afternoon when the skirmishes advanced without any direct orders + and engagement was begun which resulted by mistake in the capture of Blakely—Soldiers never did better than the Colored Soldiers today.” It is clear that Scofield had a great deal of respect and empathy for the often-maligned Colored Troops.

Since the Scofield diaries entered the Newberry, staff have learned that after the war Scofield assembled one of the largest private libraries in Iowa, with more than 20,000 volumes. One title from this library had entered the Newberry in 1957, forty-five years before the diaries: J. A. Besson’s presentation copy of History of Eufaula, Alabama: The Bluff City of the Chattahoochee (1875), an interesting local history that includes an “H. Scofield, Private Library” bookplate. Thus, not only do Scofield’s diaries offer an extraordinary perspective on the Civil War, but they also provide a unique glimpse into the life of a voracious nineteenth-century American reader and book collector.

– John Brady; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).

View the Hiram Scofield diaries at Newberry Digital Collections

[digitalnewberry]

Washington Hall's 1836 letters: A glimpse into enslaved family life

Not much is known about Washington Hall, the African American slave author of three 1836 letters to his wife, Jemima Hall. Hall’s owner was Levi E. Hall, a large landowner near Florida, Missouri, who had ten slaves in 1840 and probably produced cash crops like hemp and tobacco. When Levi Hall died in 1849, his son took over the farm and continued to own slaves. Whether Washington Hall was among them is not known.

The outlines of Jemima Hall’s life are clearer. Born in Virginia, she was about twelve years old in 1822 when she was purchased for $300 by the Davidson family and given as a wedding present to Mary Davidson Rodgers. That same year, Jemima moved with Mary and her husband, Alert Rodgers, to Missouri, where she eventually married Washington Hall. Jemima likely was given her freedom in 1836, when she accompanied the Rodgers family to their new home in Warren County, Illinois. She lived with them until her death in 1875.

Washington Hall’s correspondence and that of his master make plain the cruel realities of human bondage. In his poignant and affectionate letters to Jemima, written soon after her departure for Illinois, Washington was unable to do more than plead with her to come back to him and urge her not to let her former owner persuade her to stay with them. Levi Hall’s stern letter spells out the ground rules for Jemima’s return to Washington. He informed her that, on condition of “correct deportment,” he would “make you and Washington as happy as circumstances will admit, but not to free him, nor do I think your freedom will much better your condition.” If Jemima were to rejoin her husband, it seems she had to agree to be free in name only. She went on without him.

Correspondence from African American slaves is quite rare, and letters addressed to family members especially so. Writing was not a common form of expression among this mostly illiterate population. When it does survive, it provides an immediate and tantalizing glimpse into the lives, thoughts, and feelings of the enslaved. In addition to their almost overwhelming emotional content, the Hall letters offer clues about friendships, slave-master relationships, literacy, and religious belief that are difficult to tease out from other sources.

– Martha Briggs; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).

[digitalnewberry]

Children's abolition magazine: The Slave's Friend (1836-1838)

TO SUPPORT THE ABOLITION of slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society issued four publications soon after its 1833 founding: a newspaper, Human Rights; two magazines for adults, Anti-Slavery Record and Emancipator; and a sixteen-page, monthly children’s magazine, The Slave’s Friend. Letters from Arthur Tappan, a founder of the society, edited the latter from the organization’s New York offices from its first issue in 1836 to its last, only two years later.

Each issue of The Slave’s Friend included short stories, poems, and wood engravings—all designed to show the terrible conditions of slavery in the United States. The magazine portrays slaveholders as cruel and evil, while slaves are noble but abused. Time and again, in melodramatic and sentimental tales, the magazine’s writers drew on Christian piety to excoriate the nation for the sin and shame of slavery. Editors of The Slave’s Friend imagined children as political actors, calling on them to save their pennies, and those of their parents, for the abolitionists’ cause. An 1837 issue of The Slave’s Friend asks readers to form their own juvenile anti-slavery societies.

The small-format publication cost one cent per issue, though few were sold. Instead, the society distributed the magazine through the mail free of charge. Most readers were children from Northern states; few issues made it to the South, because postmasters there were reluctant to allow delivery of abolitionist propaganda.

The cover of issue number 5 depicts a Christian gentleman teaching black children. The scriptural reference, a common feature of the magazine, reads: “The lips of the wise disperse knowledge” (Proverbs 15:7). The same engraving and reference appeared on the cover of numerous issues. The opening of issue number 2 shows a chained black man praying on one knee over the caption: “O my great massa in heaven, pity and bless me a poor slave.” Opposite is the “Child’s Creed,” intended to teach youngsters that God is the father of all children, free or slave, and “that God loves a colored child as well as a white child.” Readers likely were expected to recite the portion of the creed that states, “I believe that it is right to be kind to the poor slaves, to pray for them, and to try to persuade slaveholders to give them their liberty; that it is wicked to buy and sell men, women, and children, and that it is very wicked to say that slavery is a dreadful sin, and that it is a dreadful sin to buy and sell men, women, and children.”

The Newberry purchased multiple issues of The Slave’s Friend in 1999. The periodical supplements a number of collection strengths, including abolitionist materials and children’s literature. The issues at the Newberry are particularly notable because they include their covers as issued. -- David Spadafora; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).

View The Slave's Friend at Newberry Digital Collections

[digitalnewberry]

Layer by layer: designing the 1953 Christmas Seal

For much of the 20th century, Christmas Seals -- tiny labels sold as fundraisers to fight tuberculosis -- were added to millions of pieces of holiday mail. The tradition began in the U.S. in 1907, and by the 1950s it had become a familiar part of Christmas greetings.

The Newberry holds behind-the-scenes design material for the 1953 Christmas Seal, created by Chicago illustrator and graphic designer Elmer Jacobs. Active from the late 1920s through the 1960s, Jacobs was influenced by Chicago’s New Bauhaus/School of Design.

Our favorite piece from this section of Jacobs' papers is this progressive proof sheet, showing the seal built layer by layer: first the shapes, then the faces, then the greens and reds, until a bundled-up child appears mid-carol under the word "Greetings." According to a 1953 newspaper account, Jacobs' goal was "to capture in the child’s upturned face 'the faith, purity, love, and all the things that should be foremost in our thoughts, particularly during the holiday season!'"

View more selections from the Elmer Jacobs papers at Newberry Digital Collections

[digitalnewberry]

Autumn in the Archives

🍂 Happy first day of fall 🍂

Did you know the Newberry has nearly 400 historic postcards celebrating autumn -- from Paris fashion plates to pumpkin harvest scenes? Browse the collection!

[digitalnewberry]

New at Newberry Transcribe: Gilded Age gossip

Step into 1880s Chicago with two newly added letter collections now available for transcription!

First, the correspondence of Charles L. Hutchinson, philanthropist and Art Institute founder, featuring letters from Chicago's cultural elite including architects Daniel Burnham and John W. Root. These reveal behind-the-scenes glimpses of the city's emerging cultural institutions.

Then there's businessman Charles Ansel Morse, whose letters home to Massachusetts cover everything from real estate deals to family drama to Oscar Wilde's scandalous American tour. His correspondence offers an intimate portrait of Gilded Age life, mixing business with society gossip.

Ready to eavesdrop on the past? Visit Newberry Transcribe to help transcribe these letters and uncover the stories of Gilded Age Chicago!

Edward E. Ayer to Charles L. Hutchinson, May 11, 1921

[digitalnewberry]

Have a safe 4th of July!

With love from the Newberry's postcard collections 🎆🎇🧨

[digitalnewberry]

Break out the tea sets and feathered hats -- we’re going full Gilded Age!

Ready to peek behind the velvet curtains of history? Join us at Newberry Transcribe to become a digital detective of the Gilded Age with these newly-added letters from Chicago’s high society, circa 1860s to 1910s.

From the family papers of Norman Wait Harris, founder of the Harris Trust and Savings Bank of Chicago:

Muriel Bent Harris letters to Stanley Gale Harris, 1908-1910 - part 1

Muriel Bent Harris letters to Stanley Gale Harris, 1908-1910 - part 2

Muriel Bent Harris letters to Stanley Gale Harris, 1908-1910 - part 3

Muriel Bent Harris letters to Stanley Gale Harris, 1908-1910 - part 4

From the family papers of Walter Newberry, benefactor of the Newbery Library:

Mary Louisa Newberry letters, 1868-1885 - part 1

Mary Louisa Newberry letters, 1868-1885 - part 2

Mary Louisa Newberry letters, 1868-1885 - part 3

Mary Louisa Newberry letters, 1868-1885 - part 4

Please help us unlock handwritten secrets by transcribing them for future researchers!

[digitalnewberry]

Happy 4th of July from the Newberry's postcard collections

Celebrate the Fourth the old-fashioned way — with a postcard! The Newberry’s collection includes Uncle Sams of all ages and attitudes, ready to deliver your holiday greeting.

Newberry Postcard Sender 💖🤍💙

[digitalnewberry]

Hot enough for you?

The 19th century feels your pain. In this 1898 letter from our Everett Family Papers, the recommended remedy: eat, drink (especially drink), and stop working to sit under the trees.

We 100% endorse. 👍

Remsen July 19 1898 My Dear Miss Everett, It is too hot to write or read long letters so I will just write a note this time to let you know we are all well but feel the heat some today. Miss Roberts stood the journey real well. She was a little tired of course but got rested in a short time. Mrs. Davis went from here Monday she expected to stay with friends at Utica for a day or two. We have had very nice weather since they have been here until the last two days which have been quite hot and sultry. Miss Roberts says she would like to hear from home, and says too that she is having a splendid time doing nothing but eat and drink. Especially drink and expects to be home some time next week. I think Maggie will come with her. We have all stopped working and are sitting out under the trees. They are all talking so I hardly know what I am writing so will close with love to all from us all. We would like to hear from you again. Celia Davis Hughes

View at Newberry Digital Collections

With gratitude to our online volunteers for the transcription! Want to join in? Visit Newberry Transcribe

[digitalnewberry]

New transcription challenge: a 1787 critique of the U.S. Constitution

Just added to Newberry Transcribe: an unpublished 1787 speech -- likely by a Massachusetts Revolutionary War veteran -- arguing against ratifying the U.S. Constitution. The author warns it would concentrate federal power and leave the middle class unable to compete with wealthy elites in national politics.

Help transcribe! Speech opposing ratification of the U.S. Constitution, 1787 or View manuscript at Newberry Digital Collections

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New transcription challenge: Alexander Calder letters, 1935-1971

Just added to our transcription crowdsourcing project: Alexander Calder’s correspondence from the Arts Club of Chicago records.

Help bring these letters to life and make them fully searchable and accessible! Alexander Calder letters at Newberry Transcribe

From a collection essay by Chicago historian Liesl Olson:

[The above] 1945 letter from American artist Alexander "Sandy" Calder to Rue Winterbotham Shaw, president of the Arts Club of Chicago, illuminates Calder's playful melding of art and the everyday. Here Calder described his stovetop invention for avoiding the overflow of boiled milk: a system of weights and balances constructed from scrap metal, not unlike the much larger mobiles for which he is most famous. The artist also provided an illustration, which shows a dish of milk sitting atop a gas flame. One end of a wire is weighted down in the milk with an old aluminum cup; an empty tin sits at the other end on an adjustable platform. "When the milk rises in the pot the tin can is dumped on the floor," Calder wrote, "making a horrible noise. Thus through nervousness one's attention is held." Three years before Calder wrote this letter to Shaw, the Arts Club had commissioned his magnificent mobile Red Petals. Still on view at the club, it stands over eight feet tall. But like Calder's tiny stovetop contraption, Red Petals is constructed partly from boilerplate. Built during the metal shortages of World War II, Calder's mobile and milk pot both radiate balance and beauty, practicality and frugality. -- Newberry 125 (UChicago Press: 2012)

Portrait photograph: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. "Alexander Calder in his Paris studio" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1920 - 1949

Manuscript pages: Arts Club of Chicago records, Newberry Library

Artwork photograph: Red Petals, The Arts Club of Chicago; Elizabeth Wakeham Bequest, 1942. Calder Foundation