Exhibit Outline In Progress, July 24

Exhibit Topics/Cases

*Reading Letters: An Introduction to Using these Resources
a. Why did these people sometimes write upside down or all around the edges of the page or even across what they had already written?
b. Why didn't they always end their sentences with a period?
c. Why did they sometimes write on the backs of other things?
d. Why bother reading letters -- are they really part of history?


1. Antebellum Reform Movements and the Early Life of the Chase Sisters
a. Letter from Pliny about abolution activities at home ("we some expect grandmother")
b. Early "valentine" poem and notes from lecture to show seriousness
c. Possibly flirting poem to show normalcy
d. Anti-Capital punishment petitions to show involvement, attitude, and connectedness to family petition


The Contraband Question Arises: "What Shall We Do With the Negro?"
a. The story of Butler's experience and response -- show document
b. The story of Seward sending Pierce -- show document
c. The story of the establishment of the New England Educational Commission -- show document


Lucy and Sarah Chase Answer the Call
a. show Sarah's letter requesting permission to go south to do nursing
b. show family's positive response
c. show letter inviting sisters south?
d. Quote from first or early letters describing arrival and initial reaction


Conditions in the Freedmen Camps
a. Conditions of freedmen and Early Work of "Teachers"
clothing needs,
housing needs,
education needs,
problem of being drafted into work and army
b. Conditions of teachers


The Lives and Characters of the Freedmen as Represented in the Chase Letters
a. Give Overview of antebellum debate and way that was reflected in Pierce report (or if that has been done in earlier section, refer to and reiterate that here. Show how same questions and viewpoing frame the things that the Chase sisters focus on in their letters and the rhetorical care with which they discuss them.

b. Human