Seward Family Project

[tslaught]

The Seward Family Project at the University of Rochester draws on the Seward Papers at UR and other materials at other institutions and in private hands. Students in my two courses, The Seward Family's Civil War and The Seward Family in Peace and in War, are transcribing and annotating the manuscripts, and designing and building an interactive website for the project, working with a programmer, the director of our digital humanities program, librarians, graduate students, and me. We hope to have the website operative in about three years, at which point it will be freely accessible to all. We hope to build a community that will interact with the website and are thinking now about a crowd-sourcing model. I am estimating that the entire project will be completed about six years from now--June 2019. This year, the students are working in materials from 1860, 61, and 62, and I am also working in materials from 1800 to 1835 in preparation for their work in subsequent years, after they finish working with the Civil War manuscripts. At present, we are contemplating the project coverage as either the span of the life of William Henry Seward or through the lives of his children.
Part of the collection in our library's Rare Books and Special Collections Department was microfilmed decades ago, but only part. The finding aid is also incomplete and we are finding materials, especially family materials, that have not been utilized by researchers who have used the manuscripts and microfilm. I have also found over twenty family diaries and journals that are in private hands, and some Civil War correspondence that is privately owned, in addition to what has been readily accessible at other libraries in New York and elsewhere.
I am working on a book, The Seward Family in Peace and in War. Thomas P. Slaughter, University of Rochester

[RJNorton]

Dr. Slaughter, welcome to our forum!

[Gene C]

Welcome, we are happy to have you join us, and I've got a question about Augustas Seward. On a previous thread "Dark Union - Questions", post #3
http://rogerjnorton.com/LincolnDiscussio...us+seward,

Is there any evidence of what the nature of this alleged "diseased condition of the brain" might be, if it ever existed?

[Linda Anderson]

(04-17-2013 08:29 AM)tslaught Wrote:  Part of the collection in our library's Rare Books and Special Collections Department was microfilmed decades ago, but only part. The finding aid is also incomplete and we are finding materials, especially family materials, that have not been utilized by researchers who have used the manuscripts and microfilm. I have also found over twenty family diaries and journals that are in private hands, and some Civil War correspondence that is privately owned, in addition to what has been readily accessible at other libraries in New York and elsewhere.
I am working on a book, The Seward Family in Peace and in War. Thomas P. Slaughter, University of Rochester

Welcome to the forum, Dr. Slaughter! It's wonderful to learn that not only will the 198 microfilm reels of the Seward Papers will be easily available but also that you have found new diaries and correspondence.

Some of us are very interested in the assassination attempt of Seward by Lewis Powell. As a result of your project, we may find accounts of the attack by other family members and servants which will shed more light on it. There also may be correspondence between Seward and others involved in the investigation such as Thomas Eckert who was put in charge of Powell when Powell was imprisoned.

Also, one of the conspirators,, George Atzerodt, stated in his confessions that he overheard Booth say that he had been flirting with a Seward chambermaid trying to get information about Seward and his house. Someone may have written about that in a letter.

Is there a publication date for your book The Seward Family in Peace and War?

[BettyO]

Welcome Dr Slaughter!

We're delighted to have you with us. Your project sounds wonderful!

[Linda Anderson]

An update on the Seward Family Project was published Feb. 14, 2014 on the University of Rochester's website.

http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=8142

"A $360,000 grant from the Fred L. Emerson Foundation will help the University of Rochester digitize the Seward Family Archive, one of the most comprehensive and extensive firsthand accounts of 19th-century American political and social life...

"In the next three years, the project collaborators expect to digitize almost half of the Seward Family Collection and to update the archive's finding aid...

"A notable example of the collection's value is found in the papers of Seward's daughter, Fanny. Along with her library, which is preserved at the Seward House Museum in Auburn, N.Y., her diaries and correspondence provide the best documentation of the life of a Victorian American teenage girl that survives anywhere. "Fanny's ambitions to be a writer, her experiences in Washington, D.C., where she had friendships with a famous actress and with children and spouses of the leading politicians of the day, and her firsthand experience of major historical events are documented only in our collection," says Slaughter."

[BettyO]

This is great news, Linda! Fantastic!

[Joe Di Cola]

Linda,

It would be wonderful if Fanny's diary could someday be published.

Joe

[Linda Anderson]

(02-15-2014 10:10 AM)Joe Di Cola Wrote:  Linda,

It would be wonderful if Fanny's diary could someday be published.

Joe

Joe,

I agree but in the meantime we can read Particia Carley Johnson's dissertation, Sensitivity and Civil War: The Selected Diaries and Papers of Frances Adeline (Fanny) Seward.

Rob Wick posted in another thread that the dissertation is available through Proquest.

http://dissexpress.umi.com/dxweb/search.html

Johnson's supervisor for her thesis was Professor Glyndon G. Van Deusen who wrote a biography of Seward entitled William Henry Seward. Van Deusen was instrumental in the University of Rochester obtaining the Seward Papers rather than the Library of Congress (or Yale University which also wanted them).

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=3453

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/index.cfm?PAGE=3451

Johnson's footnotes for her dissertation are amazing. She footnotes in great detail every person, place or thing that Fanny mentions in her diary. There are almost 2,000 footnotes.

The first part of the dissertation is called "Fanny Seward and Her Times" which includes biographical sketches of the Seward family.

[HerbS]

Dr.Slaughter-a big welcome to you! We need to keep in touch.As I live in Victor,NY-Herb Swingle-585-490-3726