Description
Book SynopsisWriting Home offers readers a firsthand account of the life of Emma Alderson, an otherwise unexceptional English immigrant on the Ohio frontier in mid-nineteenth-century America, who documented the five years preceding her death with astonishing detail and insight. Her convictions as a Quaker offer unique perspectives on racism, slavery, and abolition; the impending war with Mexico; presidential elections; various religious and utopian movements; and the practices of everyday life in a young country.
Introductions and notes situate the letters in relation to their critical, biographical, literary, and historical contexts. Editor Donald Ulin discusses the relationship between Alderson’s letters and her sister Mary Howitt’s
Our Cousins in Ohio (1849), a remarkable instance of transatlantic literary collaboration.
Writing Home offers an unparalleled opportunity for studying immigrant correspondence due to Alderson’s unusually well-documented literary and religious affiliations. The notes and introductions provide background on nearly all the places, individuals, and events mentioned in the letters.
Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.
Trade Review"Emma Botham Alderson, author of this important collection of letters, is an unusually articulate, observant, and skilled writer, who brings to life the courage and ingenuity of America’s nineteenth-century English settlers. Such records are of special significance in our own time, when many are sadly unappreciative of the hardships and heartbreak of the immigrant experience. Donald Ulin provides a wealth of well-researched material to help us better understand the text and its historical context." -- Paula Feldman * co-editor of The Collected Poetry of Mary Tighe *
"Emma Botham Alderson, an English Quaker woman setting out on a new life in the United States, was an acute and sensitive observer of life in the Ohio Valley in the 1840s. Her letters to family back in England are filled with observations on everything from landscapes to politics to slavery and antislavery to Quaker peculiarities. We are fortunate that they have survived, and fortunate that they have found such a skilled and thorough editor in Donald Ulin." -- Tom Hamm * editor of Quaker Writings: An Anthology, 1650-1920 *
"Bucknell University Press must be highly congratulated for fulfilling so successfully the role of an academic press (no surprise for Bucknell) and not shrinking this volume to a slender market piece. The book contains Ulin’s full scholarly apparatus of endnotes, an appendix of the physical and postal attributes of the letters, an appendix of names, a rich bibliography, and a detailed index. Ulin and Bucknell University Press have demonstrated the highest standard of academic publishing. This book is worth every penny and is something to write home about." * Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies *
"The letters are a wonderful window into Alderson's experiences...The editorial sections are tremendously insightful and valuable. Ulin has completed a lot of research about all manner of aspects of Alderson's life and context." * Quaker Studies *
Table of Contents Illustrations
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Friends and Family
Final Years in England
Letters, Authorship, and Transnational Modernity
Editorial Practices and Principles
I. Leaving home: the
Shenandoah, across the Alleghenies, the First Winter
Six Weeks at Sea
Across the Alleghenies
American Friends
The Botany of Home
Letters (1842 to 1843)
1. To Unknown, July 8, 1942
2. To Ann Botham, August 17, 1842
3. To Ann Botham and Mary Howitt, September 1842
4. To Ann Botham and Anna Harrison, October 7, 1842
5. To Anna Harrison and Daniel Harrison, November 30, 1842
6. To Ann Botham, January 16, 1843 to February 24, 1843
7. To Mary Harrison and Margaret Ann Harrison, March 27, 1843
8. To Ann Botham, April 7, 1843 to April 16, 1843
9. To Ann Botham, May 16, 1843 to May 28, 1843
II. A Home of their Own: First Years at Cedar Lodge
Pittsburgh to Cincinnati by Steamboat
Landscapes: Beauty and More Botany
Becoming (and Unbecoming) Americans
Family and Friends
Friends and the Great Separations
Letters 1843 to 1845
10. To Anna Harrison and Daniel Harrison, June 1843
11. To Ann Botham, July 25, 1843
12. To Ann Botham, September 6, 1843
13. To Mary Howitt, October 3, 1843
14. To Ann Botham, October 29, 1843 to November 14, 1843
15. To Anna Harrison, November 20, 1843 to December 1, 1843
16. To Ann Botham, December 31, 1843
17. To Ann Botham, January 28, 1844 to March 9, 1844
18. To Ann Botham, April 22, 1844 to May 6, 1844
19. To Ann Botham, May 19, 1844 to June 14, 1844
20. To Ann Botham, June 2, 1844 to July 24, 1844
21. To Anna Harrison, September 2, 1844 to September 13, 1844
22. To Mary Howitt, October 13, 1844
23. To Ann Botham, October 24, 1844
24. To Ann Botham, December 1, 1844 to December 26, 1844
25. To Mary Howitt, January 20, 1845
26. To Ann Botham, March 7, 1845 to May 27, 1844
27. To Ann Botham, April 4, 1845
28. To Ann Botham, May 21, 1845
29. To Anna Mary Howitt, June 10, 1845
30. To Anna Harrison, July 19, 1845
31. To Ann Botham, September 13, 1845
32. To Ann Botham, October 1845
32. To Ann Botham, October 1845
33. To Ann Botham, October 25, 1845
34. To Anna Harrison, November 5, 1845
35. To Ann Botham, November 1845 to December 24, 1845
36. William Howitt, December 28, 1845
III. The Final Years
Race and Racism in America
Becoming an Author
The End
Letters 1846-1847
37. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, January 1, 1846 to January 8, 1846
38. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, January 9, 1846 to January 20, 1846
39. To Mary Howitt, February 15, 1846 to February 21, 1846
39. To Mary Howitt, February 15, 1846 to February 21, 1846
40. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, January 28, 1846 to March 2, 1846
41. To Ann Botham, March 23, 1846
42. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, March 2, 1846 to March 26, 1846
42. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, March 2, 1846 to March 26, 1846
43. To Margaret and Herbert Howitt, April 1, 1846 to April 16, 1846
44. To Mary Howitt, April 18, 1846 to May 18, 1846
44. To Mary Howitt, May 1, 1846 to May 18, 1846
45. To Ann Botham, May 3, 1846 to May 18, 1846
46. To Mary Howitt, May 14, 1846 to June 14, 1846
46. To Mary Howitt, May 15, 1846 to June 14, 1846
47. To Mary Howitt, June 30, 1846 to July 11, 1846
48. To Anna Harrison, June 26, 1846 to July 15, 1846
49. To Ann Botham, July 12, 1846
50. To Mary Howitt, July 13, 1846 to June 27, 1846
51. To Mary Howitt, August 2, 1846 to August 15, 1846
52. To Mary Howitt, August 1846 to September 21, 1846
52. To Mary Howitt, August 1846 to September 21, 1846
53. To Ann Botham, September 21, 1846
54. To Ann Botham, September 1846
55. To Mary Howitt, September 27 1846 to October 20, 1846
56. To Mary Howitt, October 24, 1846 to November 20, 1846
56. To Mary Howitt, October 24, 1846 to November 20, 1846
57. To Anna Harrison, November 1846
58. To Ann Botham, November 24, 1846
59. To Ann Botham, December 20, 1846
60. To Mary Howitt, November 29, 1846 to December 25, 1846
61. To Mary Howitt, February 2, 1847
62. To Mary Howitt, February 21, 1847 to October 7, 1847
63. To Mary Harrison and Margaret Ann Harrison, March 20, 1847
64. To Ann Botham, March 1847
65. To Ann Botham, April 10, 1847 to April 20, 1847
66. To Ann Botham, May 23, 1847
67. To Ann Botham, June 1847 to July 1847
68. To Mary Howitt, July 23, 1847
69. To Mary Howitt and Ann Botham, July 24, 1847
70. To Anna Harrison, August 24, 1847
71. To Mary Howitt, October 1847
72. To Ann Botham, October 9, 1847
73. To Mary Howitt, November 23, 1847
74. To Mary Howitt and William Howitt, December 1847
75. To Ann Botham and William Howitt, December 18, 1847
Epilogue
Cedar Lodge
The Aldersons and their Descendants
The Harrisons and their Descendants
The Howitts and their Descendants
Joseph Taylor and Family
Appendix 1. Physical and Postal Attributes
Appendix 2. Directory of Names
Bibliography
Index
