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Re: A Description Dilemma



Are you planning on publishing the results of your work?  It would be
fascinating to see such an undertaking bear fruit.  The sexually explicit
material in those three letters give your collection a fullness that most
documents don't have, even diaries that are found and published rarely
contain this type of material yet as our own society shows it far from
scarce.  Moral or not, it is a large, and therefore important, portion of
our cultural history.

Good luck,

Tom Anderson; Collections
American Museum of Science and Energy
300 S. Tulane
Oak Ridge, TN 37830
(865) 576-3228 (Voice), (865) 576-6024 (Fax)

-----Original Message-----
From: Elayne Goyette <YEGoyette@AOL.COM>
To: ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU <ARCHIVES@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU>
Date: Thursday, September 21, 2000 8:47 PM
Subject: [ARCHIVES] A Description Dilemma


>Dear Colleagues,
>
>I've been processing a large and, at times, quite personal family
collection
>at The National Civil War Museum, made up of 26 binders containing between
>75-99 documents each.  The date range is 1826-1891 and covers the letters
and
>documents written by three generations.  Family members have been, for lack
>of a better term, housewives, elected officials, lawyers and merchants.
>
>Until now the documents contained in the first 18 binders have given me,
and
>will give our researchers, a fairly complete picture of life in rural
>Virginia before, during and after the Civil War.  Describing them has been
>pretty straight forward...until now.
>
>Binder 19 contains three documents that I would describe as filthy, and
none
>of them are signed.  I'm not just talking about the kind of filth that can
be
>removed by dry cleaning.  Portions of the letters are sexually explicit and
>not too kindly phrased.  I don't know why the family has kept them for well
>over 100 years!
>
>I've never come across stuff like this before and wonder whether any of you
>have, and if you have, I'd really like to know how you've described them,
for
>describe them I must.
>
>All replies and advice would be gratefully accepted.
>
>Thank you.
>
>Elayne Goyette
>YEGoyette@aol.com
>
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>Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>