Libraries

Lincoln Goes Online

A new program posting the University’s Abraham Lincoln letters online is putting students in touch with history.

The collection—which includes 72 letters written by Lincoln and 215 written to him—can be viewed at www.library.rochester.edu/rbk/lincoln.

The documents, most of which are part of the William Henry Seward Papers, have been scanned and posted online with typed transcriptions. For some documents, graduate students will write contextual essays and lesson plans for teachers to facilitate the use of the documents in their classrooms.

Given to the University by the Fred L. Emerson Foundation of Auburn, N.Y., the letters by Lincoln provide insight into the 16th president’s attitudes toward slavery and the Civil War. In one document, Lincoln writes to a senator about gradual emancipation of slaves with financial compensation for slave owners, says Brian Fleming, the librarian who is heading the Lincoln project.

“To be given a document that plunks you right into a situation that Lincoln was facing, it’s very compelling,” Fleming says.