Iowa Documents Class Projects

This class project was a collaboration between Professor Thomas Connors (Department of History), Chris Neuhaus (Instruction and Liaison Librarian), and Ellen Neuhaus (Digital Scholarship Librarian).

In the spring 2022 honors section of HIST 1023-Section 2 History of the United States students examined early original Iowa documents. Students studied the documents and developed metadata for the online archive of documents. They transcribed the documents and wrote background research articles and developed bibliography of sources.

To help students gather and create metadata information, a Metadata Worksheet Template has been developed.

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[01] William B. Allison, letter, politics

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[02] William J. A. Bradford (1797-1858), letter about politics & crime

A letter from William Bradford to Jonathan W. Parker about the Iowa statehood convention of 1840 and his time in Dubuque; as well as the occurrence of the Bellevue War.
[03] John Chambers, documents, expenses, diplomacy

Numerous accounting documents from the office of John Chambers regarding expenses with Indian Affairs.
[04] Charles Dunham, letter, journalism, politics
[05] Alice French / Octave Thanet, letter, literature

A typewritten letter from Alice French. This letter was written in Davenport, Iowa on April 17, 1897 and is a response to a letter written by Miss Halstead. French discusses articles about her, books published by her, and her current works within the letter.
[06] Hamlin Garland, letter, literature
[07] Elizabeth Grimes, letter, death, and mourning

This is a letter from Elizabeth Grimes, wife of James Grimes, she’s sending it in response to recently learning about the death of another friend. In this letter, she is saying kind words about her virtuous late friend, religion, and sheds light on the process of mourning in the Victorian era of America. Additionally, there is some information about the state of the government at the time as the letter is written just 15 days before the secession of South Carolina from the Union and 4 months before the beginning of the civil war.
[08] James Harlan, letter, agriculture, and war

A letter of inquiry to Charles Sumner about the production of flax-cotton in place of regular cotton and selling it to Massachusetts and New England mills.
[09] George W. Jones, document or letter, accomplishments or law

A letter from George W. Jones to the Supreme Court of Iowa.
[10] John A. Kasson, politics

A letter from Mr. John A. Kasson to Colonel Wm Moore written in Des Moines, Iowa on June 2, 1866. In the letter, Kasson discusses his upcoming campaign for representative of Iowa’s 5th congressional district in the US House of Representatives, in which he lost the nomination to Grenville Dodge.
[11] Charles Mason, land and law

A letter from Charles Mason to Caleb H. Booth requesting a survey of Kanesville for an attempt to secure the 1st Congressional District seat for William Thompson.
[12] Jonathan Wetherbee Parker, letter transportation
William J.A. Bradford