Challenge 1: Peter Hansen’s Letters

Completed!

The Marie Hansen Taylor Correspondence is one of the largest collections included in the project. Over many decades, Marie Hansen Taylor and her mother, Lina Braun Hansen, exchanged hundreds of letters. In this challenge, we’re focusing on the smaller set of letters written by Marie Hansen Taylor’s father, astronomer Peter Hansen.

Challenge 2: Who Was Friedrich Wilhelm Hess?

At the heart of the Hess/Hassel Family Letters lies a mystery: why did a man from Westphalia named Wilhelm Hassel leave his home and family behind and take on a new name, Friedrich Wilhelm Hess, in the United States? Could the letters he received from his sister and other family members shed light on what happened?

Challenge 3: The Civil War through an Immigrant’s Eyes

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.