Seeing the Patterns

This summer I have started an Independent study in which I will compare the structure of letters of educated women in Britain (in the late 1500s) to educated women in the early 1700s. I have just begun working with UCF's PRINT project and have already found myself deeply engaged with transcribing letters from the Pemberton collection.

I have attended my first PRINT meeting and I have also attended one transcription meeting. I spent the rest of my day transcribing one of the letters in the database and I can already tell it's going to be an addicting process. For my selection it was important to choose a women writer as that is my focus for my thesis. I found two letters from a Jane Yardley. Although parts of one the letters are smudged and have tears I found myself engaged with her style. Her long opening Salutation is warm and welcoming. She is addressing her sister so that's to be expected but you could really tell that she was missing her and wishing her well.

The tricky part has been learning her unique language. Of course, there are misspellings, even we do not write to those with love with perfect grammar . But towards the end of the letter her handwriting changes slightly. No longer is it neat and tidy and following a line pattern. She begins to write bigger and her letters become wider. I have yet to figure out if this is due to her being in a rush or if she was tiring out. Her urgency does not change but the amount of pressure used seems to cause more splotches especially in her more closely written letters such as f's, s's and e's.

Overall, even with a couple of words still illegible and missing from my transcription - which I hope to get sorted out during my Friday meeting - I'm proud that I was able to get through my first letters without too much of a struggle. I will say if you are thinking about doing this on your own. Work with a friend for the first couple. They help you to see where you are tripping up or when you are overthinking. Overthinking is usually where I go completely wrong. Using context clues was the biggest help for me. I am thoroughly excited to bring you all along on my journey throughout this process.

Going forward I'm going to ask how much I can share. I will be mainly looking at the structure of the letters but I hope to share some full clips of the contexts as well as showcase some of the harder to read bits of the letters in order to better explain the beginning transcription process.

*Let's please remember I'm at the very beginning of the journey. I will be making mistakes and I am not the expert*

If anyone has questions feel free to comment and I can either try and answer or when I do not know, I can send the message to someone who likely will!

Until Next Time....

Which female writers do you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments!