Lehigh

Do you enjoy reading other people's letter?  I've a stack of books on the shelves, "The Letters of...." " The Journals of... "  letters to,  letters from...  It always starts off so well, then by page 50 meh.  What I really looking for is some sense of personality, show me the written word, touched by humans.  Lehigh University offers the fix I'd searched for.

I've become lost in the Lehigh University Library Services website.  Their comprehensive digital  library is stunning.  Click a link and follow and of the 12 special archives which include illustrated manuscripts,  legal justifications used to displace native populations when Europeans arrived in the New World, digital copies of Copernicus's writings, a different look at crime stories from long ago,  oral histories of early 20th century "robber barons" or my favorite "I Remain".

I Remain is a digital archive of letters, manuscripts and ephemera.  A simple pull down menu searches by last name and up pops a precis of the date and contents of the letter.  Click on the summary and a digital manuscript copy of the lettter, often including envelope pops open.  Finally!  Beware though. Jumping from R. E. Lee to George Washington to Orson Welles can become habit forming.

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