Yours Aff.c- The Lewis Manuscript Collection and Transcriptions
Morgan and Gertrude Lewis, 1812-1815
Contents: About the Collection | About the Project | About GitHub CollectionBuilder | Tech
About the Collection
The Lewis Mss. is a collection of personal correspondences from former New York governor Morgan Lewis and his wife Gertrude Lewis. Written between 1812-1815, the 26 letters detail Lewis’ tenure as Major General during the War of 1812, where he served primarily in upstate New York. These letters are housed in the Lilly Library, and in 2022, I used them as the foundation for my history degree’s capstone project. As part of that project, I transcribed the collection in its entirety. This Z652 Digital Libaries project houses the original letters alongside their transcriptions.
This project is significant because the Lewis Mss. has not previously been transcribed; as younger generations of scholars don’t know cursive, these letters are inaccesible to them. This project would open up this colelction to younger American history scholars. At present, there are woefully few personal correspondences digitally available from the War of 1812, so the transcribed collection has a large benefit for researchers who can’t afford to travel the East Coast for research on the Early National Era. War of 1812 aside, this CollectionBuilder meshes nicely with other personal correspondence and journal repositories like Alexander Street’s American Civil War: Letters and Diaries database, North American Women’s Letters and Diaries database, or Adam Matthew’s Colonial America database.
Rights and Permissions
The Lewis Mss. is over 200 years old, and therefore not subject to copyright. However, the official rights to the collection (and the digital facsimiles) belong to the Lilly Library at Indiana University. If you are interested in viewing the full .jp2 files or visiting the Lilly to view the collection, check out the Lewis Mss. finding aid in the Lilly catalog.
About the Project
This site was created by Sarah Hensler as part of the ILS-Z 652 Digital Libraries class at Indiana University. To view the full MAP profile with metadata standards and technical requirements of the project, view this MAP Profile document.
Special thanks to John Walsh and Gyuri Kang, the course instructor and assistant, for their help on developing the project. Further thanks to Erika Dowell, manuscripts curator at the Lilly Library, for ensuring permission to use the Lewis Mss. A celebrational (and Muppetational) thanks to Jim Henson and all the creators of the Muppet Show for being my motivation throughout this semester. Even further thanks to the other students of Z652 for tolerating Sarah H all semester (you all are much better and more dedicated students than she will ever be), especially Rae Davis, Megan Dye, Kel Harris, Audrey Carter, Sarah Carter, Jillian Tyler, Maggie McDonald, and Sarah Stephenson. All the best to all of you, and fond wishes for a speedy graduation!
About GitHub CollectionBuilder
This site is generated using CollectionBuilder-GH, a project to create a free and simple digital collection using GitHub Pages from:
- a CSV of collection metadata
- a folder of JPG images or PDF documents
For full details of creating your own collection site, visit CollectionBuilder Documentation!
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source framework for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-Static methodology.
The site started from the CollectionBuilder-GH template which utilizes the static website generator Jekyll and GitHub Pages to build and host digital collections and exhibits.