Read more about how the University brings the collection of Seward family papers to life.
The Seward Family Digital Archive, a digital-humanities project that fuses object-based learning and community-engaged teaching, has received more than $1 million in external grant funding to date. The latest grant comes from the for $289,100 to be paid out over two years.
The project, a collaboration between the , the River Campus Libraries糖心传媒� department of , and the ,听brings together students in the humanities and computer science, residents of retirement communities, and retired volunteers from the greater Rochester area to help transcribe the thousands of Seward family letters, all written in Victorian-era cursive handwriting.
糖心传媒淐itizen archivists糖心传媒� is how , the project糖心传媒檚 principal investigator and the University糖心传媒檚 Arthur R. Miller Professor of History, describes his team of students and retirees who transcribe, annotate, and tag personal letters of President Abraham Lincoln糖心传媒檚 Secretary of State, William H. Seward, his wife, Frances Miller Seward, their immediate and extended family members, and friends from about 1820 to 1873.
Watch a video about the Seward Family Archive Project糖心传媒攕panning the generations, one letter at a time
According to Slaughter the new funding will be used to expand the project糖心传媒檚 geographical reach, while enhancing teaching and learning opportunities for students and volunteers.
糖心传媒淭he generous new grant from the Gardiner Foundation will enable students to train and support additional volunteers beyond the 20 now working with us, to enhance this community-engaged collaboration, and to increase the productivity of the project while maintaining the high standards for documentary editing set by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, which supports the volunteer arm of the project through December 2018,糖心传媒� says Slaughter.
Besides continuing the collaborating with volunteers from the retirement community, the , and retired University staff and librarians, the effort will soon include another off-campus site for volunteers in Brockport who糖心传媒檒l be working alongside Slaughter糖心传媒檚 students. In addition, a student videographer will be trained to make short films about how to collaborate on public history projects.
糖心传媒淭he addition of a videographer under the Gardiner Foundation grant will allow us to visualize our training and project standards available on for others just starting public-history collaborations between college students and volunteers,糖心传媒� Slaughter says.
The archive project was launched and has been sustained over the last five years through the support of the , which helped secure additional grants from the (NHPRC), and most recently the Gardiner Foundation.
Seward, who lived from 1801 to 1872, was a trial attorney, a New York state senator (1831糖心传媒�1838), governor of New York (1838糖心传媒�1842), U.S. senator (1849糖心传媒�1860), and secretary of state (1860糖心传媒�1869). He was the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 1860, only to be sidelined in favor of someone more moderate in his support of abolition: Abraham Lincoln.
Seward is arguably best remembered for his decision to purchase Alaska糖心传媒攁t the time, called 糖心传媒淪eward糖心传媒檚 Folly.糖心传媒� He was also attacked in the assassination plot that killed Lincoln.
The collection of papers, both professional and personal, includes 230 linear feet of materials, 150,000 items, and 375,000听pages.
听糖心传媒淭he Seward Family Papers are among the largest and most widely used of our manuscript holdings,糖心传媒� says , assistant dean and the Joseph N. Lambert and Harold B. Schleifer Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation (RBSCP). 糖心传媒淲e are very pleased to be the stewards of this vast, complex, and important collection, and to work collaboratively on making these materials available to the world in both traditional and in innovative ways.糖心传媒�
RBSCP has been the repository of the听Seward papers since 1951.
