#primary sources

[nonbinaryjudean]

whats that? oh nothing, just a chant that Belarussian teenagers were yelling while chasing jews in 1942.

[sewerwolves]

jersey is very incestuous

[shisasan]

For years, a misattributed and altered Anaïs Nin excerpt has circulated across various platforms, including Tumblr:

"Touched bottom again. Decided to liberate myself. We are never trapped unless we choose to be."

frequently attributed to The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 4: 1944–1947

The original diary entry, from Mirages (December 7, 1944), reads:

"I touched the bottom again and then liberated myself."

Later in the same entry:

"...we are never in a trap unless we want to be."

The circulating version merges separate passages, alters the original wording, and assigns the wrong source:

This is one of the reasons I always encourage people to read the actual books themselves. The further a quote travels from its source, the more likely it is to be shortened, rewritten, merged with other passages, or assigned the wrong source altogether.

Eventually, what remains is often a version that was never actually written.

[jstor]

Reveal Digital is an open-access primary source program on JSTOR focused on social movements and marginalized communities. It’s built through collaborative library digitization using a crowdfunding and crowdsourcing model so the resulting collections are free for everyone. Associate Director Peggy Glahn explains in a new interview how the project grew to 70,000+ items across six collections thanks to more than 100 partner libraries in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.. She also talks about how this work helps ensure the materials remain available for generations to come.

If you're curious about the real stories preserved in primary sources and the work involved in opening them up for everyone, read the interview on the JSTOR Blog.

Image credit: Phiz Mezey, Bridges Randall speaking with bullhorn at San Francisco State student strike, 1968. San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library. Reveal Digital.

[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

[mathildeaquisexta]

What do we know about the letter that Fouché sent to his sister prior to and about the events of Thermidor?

Is it lost? Where is there mention of it in historiography? And did really Fouché explicitly talked about himself as "one behind the plot to get rid of Robespierre"?

Once again my dear, I am sorry it took me four entire months to answer this ask. :(

In fact, there is not just one letter involved in this case, but four. They are not lost, but kept in the Archives Nationales in the city of Saint-Denis and fully accessible to the public (it's just that they needed four whole months to send me everything).

The first one has no date. This is the letter you are referring to in your question, that was addressed to Fouché's sister Louise Brobant:

I must reassure you on two issues. First, our little girl [his daughter Nièvre] is doing better, and second, I have nothing to fear from Maximilien Robespierre's slanders. The Jacobin Club invited me to come and justify myself at its session; I did not go because Robespierre reigns supreme here. This Club has become his court. Soon you will learn the outcome of this event, which I hope will turn out to the advantage of the Republic. Farewell, take care. A thousand kisses. F.

This first letter was intercepted by Jean-Baptiste Bô, a Montagnard deputy from the Aveyron department at the National Convention. At that moment, he was in Nantes, where he was sent to replace Carrier. Bô immediately forwarded Fouché's letter to the Committee of Public Safety, enclosing this message written in his own hand:

Nantes, 3 Thermidor Citizens colleagues, With a little adroitness, I managed to obtain a letter that our colleague Fouchet wrote to his sister in Nantes, which I believe it was urgent to forward to you. I am sending it to you by post via a reliable sans-culotte, who is General Dufresse's deputy. He has announced that there are factions of conspirators who must be unceremoniously dealt with. I will help you with all my heart when I am able to uncover some of them. Salut et fraternité, Bô.

Over the following days, Bô continued to intercept suspicious letters that Fouché was sending to his family and allies (but not necessarily always to his sister). On 8 Thermidor, he had three of them, and he wrote a new message (which he apparently addressed to the Committee, although some sources say he wrote specifically and solely to Robespierre), but his warning reached Paris on 14 Thermidor, when it was already too late :

Nantes, 8 Thermidor To the Committee of Public Safety, I am sending you three letters from our colleague Fouchet, whose principles are known to you but whose criminal activities, in my opinion, must be swiftly exposed and punished. I cannot write to you further; my pains torment me, and if you do not call me back, there are days when I cannot work. I persist in my request for the public good more than for myself. Salut et Fraternité, Bô.

Here are the three letters in question. Fouché does not openly announce that he is involved in a conspiracy against Robespierre. But we can already sense that something very big is brewing, that his tone is threatening, and that he is confident that “justice will be done” and “tyranny will soon disappear” :

Paris, 30 Messidor Do not worry about your subsistence; it is not the government's intention that you lack the necessities of life at a time when the Republic is in abundance. I will go to the Committee of Public Safety, where I will plead your case with all the passion I can muster. When I speak of Nantes and its generous inhabitants, my voice will be heard favorably, and you will receive the justice you deserve. Rest assured about the effect of the atrocious slander hurled against me; I have nothing to say against its authors, for they have silenced me. But the government will soon pronounce its verdict on them and me. You can count on the virtue of its justice. Fouché

Paris, 3 Thermidor Our poor little girl is still in a worrying state; however, we remain hopeful. We will save her with care and patience. I have nothing new to tell you about my case, which has become the cause of all patriots since it became clear that those with ambition for power are declaring war on my virtue, which cannot be swayed. Just a few more days, then truth and justice will know a resounding triumph. […]

[I am not translating the rest of the letter, which refers to a matter concerning a maid whom Fouché has decided not to keep in his service because her morals do not suit him]

The third letter is probably addressed Fouché's brother-in-law, his sister's husband, and is the most explicit:

Paris, 5 Thermidor, Year II of the Republic one and indivisible Brother and friend, Rest assured, patriotism will triumph over tyranny and all those vile and despicable passions that conspire to persecute it. In a few days, the scoundrels and rascals will be exposed, and the cause of honest men will be triumphant. Today, perhaps, we will see the traitors exposed. Farewell, I embrace you with all my heart. Our little one is still in a disquieting state. A thousand kisses to our mother and all our elders.

[yeoldenews]

hey hey, got a finicky research question that I'm hoping you might be able to help with, since you were looking at marine lists trying to figure out if the mysterious Josie was a passenger on the Asia. I'm trying to track down the transatlantic movements of a few specific people in the 1860s, but these folks would all have been traveling for business purposes rather than immigration. all the New York passenger lists I've been perusing so far seem to be wall-to-wall immigration info. are records of non-immigrant travelers in a different type of record, or called a different thing, do you have any idea?

It varies quite a bit depending on what ports are involved, but in the 1850s/60s all passengers should appear on the same list - however in my personal experience the Port of New York in particular is sometimes missing non-steerage passengers.

If you're not getting any hits in passenger records, arrival lists in newspapers are always a good alternative for non-immigrant travel. I usually just search for the passenger name in quotes + arrivals.

Keep in mind that passenger lists in the 1860s often only included last names, so you may have more luck searching for "Mr. Doe" rather than "John Doe" - which can suck if you're dealing with a very common last name.

This goes for searching passenger manifests as well. I am a firm advocate of including as little info as the search engine will allow when searching through records. If you search for "John Doe" and your target is listed as "J. T. Doe" or just "Mr. Doe" you may not get a match depending on your search settings.

Transcription errors also abound with any handwritten documents - which nearly all manifest are - so be sure to try some alternate spellings or experiment with some asterisks (if whatever site you're using allows) if you're not getting any matches. And*s*n will return Anderson, Andersen, Andreessen, etc.

For inbound New York passengers my go-to newspaper for arrival lists is the New-York Tribune, which is searchable for free through the Library of Congress (Chronicling America) collection.

Though it often depends on how large a city the person you are researching was from, it's always worth checking local papers to see if they mention their travel plans. It's not uncommon for small town personal sections to include comings and goings of more prominent citizens. Businessmen in particular, depending on the industry, would occasionally place notices in the paper letting their customers know they would be abroad and for how long - which can at least give you a time range to work with.

If you're looking at images of the actual passenger list, non-immigrant travelers are most often listed at the very beginning or very end of the manifest - so if you know what ship they were supposed to be on try checking the first and last pages.

Most standard manifest forms used the last column to specify where on the ship the passengers traveled. Business travelers were most-likely "cabin" passengers (1st/2nd class)...

as opposed to steerage passengers, who were usually immigrants...

Sometimes the images on research sites zoom in on the name automatically and you can't see the last column, so that info can be easy to miss.

Hope some of this was helpful! Feel free to message me if you have any more specific questions or still aren't finding anything useful.