Hermann Raster Hermann Raster was one of the leading German-American journalists of the mid-nineteenth century. Born to a prominent family in the Duchy of Anhalt in 1827, Raster departed Germany at the age of 24 in the aftermath of the political revolutions of 1848. In the United States he quickly established himself as a writer for the burgeoning German-American press, and by 1853 had become editor of the New Yorker-Abendzeitung, one of the country’s most widely-known German-language newspapers. In the years leading up to the Civil War Raster became a fierce critic of slavery and an advocate for the newly-established Republican Party.

The Raster Family Letters, drawn from the collections of the Newberry Library in Chicago, include correspondence from more than three decades that Hermann Raster and his family exchanged with their relatives in Germany. In this transcription challenge, we are seeking your help transcribing a group of letters from the Civil War years. During the war years, Raster’s reports on the progress of the United States’ campaign against the Confederacy were widely read in newspapers throughout German-speaking Europe. He also experienced the tragic death of his first wife, Emilia, in October 1861. Help us transcribe the letters Hermann Raster sent to his sister and other relatives in Germany from 1861 to 1865 to learn more about how he experienced these tumultuous years. You will see below that there is already an excerpt from the start of each letter provided as a hint to get started...

Once you have learned Hermann Raster’s handwriting, you can go on to transcribe letters he wrote in the 1870s! Or, if you would like to read letters of Hermann Raster which have already been translated, click here.