Category Archives: Letters

“There was joy and there was sorrow”: Armistice Day, 1918

World War I was fought between multiple countries in two main alliance groups, making the process of ending the war complicated. In some ways, it began with Allied power Russia’s separate peace with the Central Powers, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, … Continue reading

A (Leap) Day in the Life: February 29

It’s been a while since we did a survey of Acumen‘s contents by taking a look at just one day. There have been fewer February 29ths than other days of the year, but, as with any other snapshot view, items from that date reveal a … Continue reading

Willie T. White’s Persistent Suitor

Normally, we don’t get caught up in reading what we’re digitizing, but some collections beg for more attention. Over the spring, the incoming correspondence of Ms. Willie Teresa White (1898-1990) caught they eye of our former colleague, Jessica, such that she began to … Continue reading

A Day in the Life: June 1

Here’s a slice of life from June 1st over the last 170 some-odd years, representing a cross-section of materials from the digital archive — from the serious to the silly, the magical to the mundane.

New and Notable in Acumen, Fall ’14 – Spring ’15

A lot has come through the digitization pipeline in the last six months or so. Here are some highlights. Diaries Martha Jane Coleman Banks commonplace book Contains diary entries, miscellaneous writings (some appear to be school related), newspaper clippings, recipes, and … Continue reading

Fighting Yellow Jack in Cuba

Have you ever heard of yellow fever? If you haven’t, give some of the credit to Dr. William Crawford Gorgas. In the early 20th century, following up on the work of Drs. Carlos Finlay and Walter Reed and others, he employed numerous sanitation … Continue reading

Everyday mysteries of the archives

Part of the fun of looking through archival material is solving mysteries. When we don’t know much about the provenance of the collection –when there’s only the material itself to go on –that mystery is even more challenging, but potentially more fun. … Continue reading

A Day in the Life: August 25

Archives give us a chance to look at the world in a lot of different ways, through lenses big and small. Today, we take a cross section of life on this date, August 25, across the decades. From 1840 to … Continue reading

“The Memorable Stone-Wall”: A local dispatch about the Battle of Cedar Mountain

In August of 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee led a campaign against Major General John Pope and the Army of Virginia. We know it now as the Northern Virginia Campaign. A letter in our archive discusses the aftermath of … Continue reading

Family Connections

With a collection as regional as the one at the W. S. Hoole Special Collections Library, it’s not surprising to find some occasional overlap. The Wynne Family Papers and the Meriwether Family Papers come together with the Coleman family, as you can see … Continue reading