Seward Project

[Linda Anderson]

The University of Rochester is digitizing the Seward Papers. I sent them an email asking when the Papers will be made available to the public.

"A collection spanning the years 1730 to 1917—public, private, and family correspondence of Seward and his family members, files and records from his long political career as governor and secretary, speeches, diaries, and other documents—was given to Rochester by Seward’s son, William Henry Seward III between 1945 and 1951. Now students of Thomas Slaughter, the Arthur R. Miller Professor of History, are bringing those papers into the digital age, transcribing and coding them to make them accessible to scholars, students, and curious readers anywhere in the world. The class—a two-course sequence, The Seward Family’s Civil War and The Seward Family in Peace and in War—meets in the Libraries’ Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Designed for undergraduate and graduate students, the course combines traditional efforts of historians—among them, transcribing, editing, and annotating primary historical documents—with intellectual tasks for the digital age: creating and implementing the Seward Project, a website collection of digitized Seward family photos and documents." - Libraries Unbound

http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V75N4...aries.html

Here's an interesting article on Seward's library at the Seward House.

http://davidjgary.com/2013/03/18/the-lib...-h-seward/

[BettyO]

I definitely want to buy this when it becomes available!

[Kieran McAuliffe]

The news that the papers of William Seward are being digitized may finally allow me to find the answer to a question that has intrigued me for years. And that is “Did William Seward accompany Abraham Lincoln on a tour of the Gettysburg battlefield on the morning of November 19, 1863 – the morning of Lincoln’s address?”

A distinguished Canadian politician, William McDougall, known as one of the Fathers of Confederation, was visiting Washington and visited the White House on November 18 to greet the President. Lincoln is said to have asked McDougall to come back another time as he had to go to Gettysburg to give a speech. He then suggested McDougall accompany him on the train.

McDougall went to Gettysburg and was there to hear the famous speech. He says that he awoke early on the morning of the 19th and accompanied Lincoln and Seward in a buggy on a tour of the battlefield. Half the books I have referenced say that the tour did happen, and half say that it did not.

Unfortunately McDougall left no notes or papers. The papers of this Canadian politician are contained in one file folder – and a very thin one at that. What happened to McDougall’s papers is a mystery. The description of the tour comes from a son who quotes a letter he received from his father. That letter is said to have described the events of those two days.

I find it interesting that with all those people present in Gettysburg, and on the train, that no one seems to have recorded the tour of the battlefield. It seems unlikely that Lincoln stayed in his hotel room on the morning of the 19th. Lincoln was an early riser. What did he do with his time that morning? I can’t imagine Lincoln having no interest in seeing the battlefield.

I am hoping that somewhere in the Seward papers there might be a note or letter or diary entry that describes the events at Gettysburg on the morning of November 19, 1863.

[RJNorton]

Hi Kieran. I just checked Walter Stahr's new book on Seward, and he writes, "The next morning Lincoln and Seward rose early and toured the battlefield in a carriage." Afterwords, he writes that the two men returned to their respective houses, dressed for the occasion, and joined the procession to the cemetery.

[Kieran McAuliffe]

Ha! I must send Mr. Stahr a list of the books that deny that the battlefield tour ever happened. I thought it was true. Too bad the Canadian, or Mr. Seward, didn’t write down his impressions of that tour.

[Linda Anderson]

(04-14-2013 03:49 PM)Kieran McAuliffe Wrote:  Ha! I must send Mr. Stahr a list of the books that deny that the battlefield tour ever happened. I thought it was true. Too bad the Canadian, or Mr. Seward, didn’t write down his impressions of that tour.

Seward did not keep a diary but he wrote a lot of letters. Have you tried checking the Seward Papers on microfilm? Besides the University of Rochester, they are also available at the Library of Congress and Yale University.

I was able to borrow them through ILL at my library until budget cuts put an end to ILL from other states. Perhaps you can still get them through your library.

[Kieran McAuliffe]

Thanks very much for the tip.
I think I thought of the microfilmt years ago and never got around to it.
I have poor eyesight so microfilm is difficult, but I am going to be in Washington this summer for a month.

[Linda Anderson]

This article on the Seward Family Project says that the Project will go live in Spring 2015. Let's hope so!

"The project is expected to go “live” in the spring of 2015. Kortepeter and his classmates are racing to get as many letters transcribed, annotated, and digitized as they can before the project’s debut."

http://www.my4.org/rochester-history-seward-81162/

[Linda Anderson]

Here's some more information on the Seward Project from the Democrat & Chronicle.

"Slaughter is spearheading a collaborative effort with UR's Digital Humanities Center and Department of Rare Books, Special Collections and Preservation of Rush Rhees Library to transcribe and put online some of these documents. The public will be able to view them and, by clicking on names in the transcribed documents, be connected to additional information about the people mentioned and customs of the day...

"The Seward Family Project will give the public a look at 19th-century upstate history that goes well beyond the big names of history.

"With a $360,000 grant from the Fred L. Emerson Foundation, which is a family-based charity in Auburn, a dozen UR students — both graduate and undergraduate — are now working on the project.

"A digital image of the document will appear on the left side of the computer screen and the transcribed version on the right.

"The viewer can click on a name and be connected to additional information about the person. UR has acquired databases — Ancestry.com and findagrave.com — to help compile information about the people mentioned in the Seward papers."

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/stor.../21231955/