More than 1,500 new pages, and love is all around

Our latest batch of manuscripts at Newberry Transcribe leans romantic. Here’s where to start:

James Munroe courtship letters, 1867 to 1869
James Munroe was a young law student when he began writing to Kate Barr Smith of Jacksonville, and this first installment picks up their correspondence at the start — the opening years of a courtship that would run nearly a decade before their 1876 marriage. The letters are full of romantic flourishes, but also of everything else on a young man’s mind: his legal training, his reading, and the political and social currents of the day, from temperance to women’s suffrage. It’s the beginning of a remarkable run of 561 letters; later batches will carry the story forward, including five letters describing the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
Transcribe the Munroe letters →

Ben Hecht letters to Rose Caylor Hecht, 1918 to early 1960s
Before Ben Hecht became one of Hollywood’s most sought-after screenwriters — Scarface, The Front Page, Notorious, His Girl Friday — he was a Chicago newspaperman, and Rose Caylor was a University of Chicago graduate reporting for the Chicago Daily News. They met while Hecht was still married to his first wife. In 1924 they left Chicago together, walking out on his family in a departure that raised eyebrows; they married in 1925, once his divorce came through. This batch spans the full arc of that relationship — from the frank, not-especially-discreet letters of their early years through decades of marriage, literary and candid throughout.
Transcribe the Hecht letters →

Also newly added

• Graham Taylor letters, 1860s to 1940s — letters from the Chicago Commons founder and settlement-house movement leader, documenting decades of reform work and social welfare in the city. Transcribe now →

• Isaac Metcalf family letters, 1860s to early 1900s — correspondence tracing rural life, farming, railroad engineering, and family news across the nineteenth century, often with several relatives crowded onto a single shared page. Transcribe now →

Whether you have five minutes or an afternoon, every page you finish makes these collections easier to search, teach with, and share.

Browse all at Newberry Transcribe →

Our Postcard Sender has gone to the cats. We’ve added a set of vintage cat postcards — free to browse, free to send, and free of any actual feline upkeep.

Pick a card, write a note on the back, and email it to a good friend.

And for the dog people among you — we see you, we respect you — there’s a set of vintage dog postcards too.

Send a cat → · or a dog →