{"id":4846,"date":"2017-07-26T07:59:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-26T12:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/?p=4846"},"modified":"2017-07-27T10:07:55","modified_gmt":"2017-07-27T15:07:55","slug":"making-something-to-write-home-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/blogdivided\/2017\/07\/26\/making-something-to-write-home-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Something to Write Home About"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of a new summer 2017 \u201cDIY\u201d (do-it-yourself) series by House Divided Project interns Rachel Morgan and Sam Weisman on how to make various types of primary source facsimiles; see posts on CDVs<\/a>, stereocards<\/a>, colorized photos<\/a>, and letters<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine holding the tear-stained letter from a loving wife to her husband, a Union soldier. Then, follow the soldier through news clippings to the bloody Battle of Antietam. Hold the wife\u2019s letter in one hand and the soldier\u2019s death notice in the other.<\/p>\n

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House Divided Project facsimile collection<\/p><\/div>\n

When students leaf through facsimile documents, they connect with these emotional stories. The authentic feel of a replica letter adds an interactive, physical layer to the study of primary sources.<\/p>\n

Within my first week as an intern at the House Divided project, I picked up some tricks to quickly reproduce primary source documents. A few key details can make a facsimile ready for classroom use with little time and effort.<\/p>\n

Getting the Paper Right<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paper was not made from wood pulp until after the Civil War. This is good for historians because newspapers and letters from this time are often better preserved than documents from the early 20th<\/sup> century. Most documents were off-white though, no matter how hard printers tried to clean them with bleach or lime.<\/p>\n

“Fine writing” in books was printed on laid paper<\/a>, a thin, woven, lightly coated sheet similar to Resume paper<\/a>. Illustrations were printed on coated paper. The facsimile equivalent of this is photo glossy paper. People would have seen major events in the Harper\u2019s Weekly<\/em><\/a> or Frank Leslie\u2019s Illustrated Weekly. <\/a><\/em>The Harper’s Weekly <\/em>archives are subscription-based but the Library of Congress carries many of the same photographs for free.<\/p>\n

Realistic marbled binding on a facsimile diary or damage to a replica letter really feels like a piece of the past. Think about what practical details are missing from an image. For example, I bound a pamplet from the Southern Historical Society<\/a> with colorful marbled paper.<\/p>\n

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To get the feel right, it can be useful to stop by your local historical society or archives to handle some original documents.<\/p>\n

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Patriotic Letters<\/strong><\/p>\n

A red, white, and blue sailor raises the flag of Union, surrounded by words of wartime optimism. Decorated stationary and envelopes<\/a> like this were one of the main trends of the Civil War. Facsimiles of patriotic letters help bring to life the experience of the era. One of the House Divided documentary projects<\/a> features this patriotic letter.<\/p>\n

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House Divided Project<\/p><\/div>\n

How to make a patriotic letter: <\/em><\/p>\n