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Civil War transcription tips
For the sake of consistency in the transcriptions of the Civil War diaries and letters, here are a few more guidelines and a short list of some common abbreviations and older spellings: Enter line...
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Digital spring awakening
It’s the Spring equinox, and the flowers are bringing us back to life, perennially a cause for celebration as the Iowa Digital Library illustrates. Bird on hand by Tilly Woodward, 2006 | The Daily...
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Civil War death toll
In an interview on NPR May 29, Professor J. David Hacker was interviewed about his census data research which leads him to posit that the accepted estimate for number of Civil War casualties is too...
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Letters from the home front
William T. Rigby | Civil War Diaries and Letters During a war conducted without telephones, Skype, or even reliable mail delivery, Civil War soldiers treasured their letters from home – and lucky for...
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Mail call
In a twelve-page letter from soldier Sam Clark to his sweetheart Tillie Wise back in Iowa, a paean to the power of correspondence to lift the spirits of the troops: “I do think it does Soldiers the...
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Nothing new under the sun: the drought of 1863
From our Civil War Diaries and Letters collection comes a letter from Sam Clark, farming in southern Iowa, to his love interest Tillie in Illinois: Unless we have rain and that very soon the corn crop...
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Food for body and spirit
James Doak’s The Art of Cookery On the last page of James Doak’s 1760s Art of cookery, following recipes for ketchup and pickled mushrooms, we find what appears to be a catalog of his library, an...
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The poetry of pudding
From the Szathmary cookbook collection, a rhyming recipe from an 1860 English cookbook: A Paradise pudding English cookbook, 1860 | Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks If you’d have a good...
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Transcription addiction
We’ve been in touch with one of our most faithful DIY History transcribers, Roger. He didn’t intend to get so drawn into the project when he first visited our site, but now he admits that “things like...
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35,000 transcriptions
DIY History milestone The diligent and talented contributors to DIY History have now transcribed more than 35,000 pages of manuscript diaries, letters, recipes and telegrams! And this number does not...
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