![]() Pamphlets sometimes took the form of letters, and newspapers frequently published letters to the editor. The epistolary form shaped other media too. Middle-class men and women turned to these manuals to learn the proper conventions of correspondence. During the eighteenth century, letter-writing manuals circulated widely on both sides of the Atlantic. Letters enabled them not only to communicate with each other across great distances, but also to build relationships, develop associations and movements, and advance themselves socially, politically, and economically. Literary critics and historians such as Konstantin Dierks, Eve Tavor Bannet, and Lindsay O’Neill have recently expanded our understanding of the letter-writing practices and correspondence networks that connected people in eighteenth-century America and the Atlantic world. Their enthusiasm illustrated to me the possibilities of engaging them in the world of eighteenth-century letters through their own use of social media. Far ahead of me on social media trends, my students surpassed my instructions and expectations. I had only asked them to compose a series of Facebook posts or tweets for an assignment in which they “translated” eighteenth-century correspondence into contemporary social media. I had not even asked students to design memes. ![]() It was captioned: “Me waiting for your letters.” One simple image and a few words translated Abigail’s words into a contemporary media form. The meme depicted a skeleton with folded arms sitting at a desk. ![]() A few of my students designed a meme to capture Abigail’s protest. This complaint resonated with my students in Gender in Early American History. ![]() “I have to acknowledg the Recept of a very few lines dated the 12 of April,” Abigail reported to John in 1776, but “you make no mention of the whole sheets I have wrote to you,” she chided him. When he did write, his letters were too short and didn’t adequately convey his sentiments. Designed by Kenna Meyers, Southern Utah University student.Ībigail Adams often complained that her husband, John, did not write her enough. ![]()
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