Handwritten letters of Whitefield

[reaganmarsh]

This is quite possibly the coolest thing I've seen in a long time: scans of George Whitefield's handwritten correspondence. Somebody posted them on Facebook and my wife pointed them out to me.

I figured that I'm not the only church history nerd around... Thus, without further ado, here's the link. Enjoy.

http://digitalcollections.smu.edu/cdm/search/collection/white

 

[johnny]

Interesting how he wrote both vertical and sideways.
Is this because paper was more expensive and George was being frugal?

 

[reaganmarsh]

Interesting how he wrote both vertical and sideways.
Is this because paper was more expensive and George was being frugal?

Great question, and I'm not sure of the answer. I recall reading somewhere that Jonathan Edwards often wrote on scraps of paper sewn together (the backs of envelopes, scraps from letters, etc.) due to the price and/or availability of paper. Perhaps this was a common custom?

 

[Reformed Covenanter]

Interesting how he wrote both vertical and sideways.
Is this because paper was more expensive and George was being frugal?

All I know is that it is a nightmare to transcribe.

 

[reaganmarsh]

Interesting how he wrote both vertical and sideways.
Is this because paper was more expensive and George was being frugal?

All I know is that it is a nightmare to transcribe.

I can certainly imagine such being the case.

 

[Ephrata]

Hey guys! I work in the Jonathan Edwards collection at Yale, and I can confirm that the practice stemmed from frugality in his case (and the same can be safely assumed of Whitefield).

Just for interest's sake: the current sermon that I'm working on (on Matthew 10:37, preached to the Stockbridge Indians in July of 1752) was written on a partially-finished academic exercise from one of Edwards' daughters. My favorite medium is "fan-paper"; Edwards occasionally wrote things on the relatively thin paper that his wife and daughters used to make decorative fans. You can actually see the shapes as they're cut out.

And yep, it can be a nightmare to transcribe. A fun nightmare, to be sure.