What Two Letters a Century Apart Tell Us About the Writers' Home Voices

Listen to the voice of John Gregory, a Civil War infantryman writing home from a cold, February campsite in 1862, a year before he would die at Gettysburg. Then, listen to the voice of Cordia Nichols, a woman diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1959 and recovering in the Catawba Sanitorium. John's letter allows us to study his dialect before audio-recording was invented, and Cordia's letter helps us to see (and hear) patterns that were still being spoken almost 100 years later in Virginia. This is just one example of what old documents like letters, journals, recipes, and more can teach us about voice through content analysis.

Thank to Brock Davidson (gbdavidson7@icloud.com) and Addy Hutchison for lending their voices to these letters.
Gregory's letter comes from the Corpus of Civil War Letters
Cordia's letter was found in an old sewing machine given to me.