Writing Home
Letters are an important means of communication and of creativity. They connect those who are at home with those who are away at the Civil War front. They appear in novels such Little Women and Iola Leroy that show the racial disparities of home-making.
“Connecting the Homefront and the Warfront”
Student Work
How to read letters from the past
A Video Presentation
Prospect Descriptive Process
The method used in the above video is adapted from the “Prospect Descriptive Process” (© The Prospect Archives and Center for Educational Research, Winter 2011). You can read more about this method here.
You Can Help: Transcribing Letters from the Past for Modern Readers
Links to Archives
Memorial Hall: A Case Study in How Archives Are Made
A Video Presentation
Colleen Boggs
Professor
Colleen Glenney Boggs is the Parents Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at Dartmouth. She specializes in nineteenth-century American literature, and has written most recently on the culture of the Civil War.