Prairie Settlement

Editorial Procedures for Transcription of Letters

Technological Issues

The letter transcripts have been coded in Standard General Markup Language (SGML) and may presently be viewed only as HTML or SGML documents. Current viewer limitations affect how the letters appear on screen and also impact the editorial policies described below, especially spacing: the three spaces inserted by the editors where letter writers used no terminal punctuation are not presently displayed (see the Punctuation section below and the sections discussing Idiosyncrasies of Individual Writers).

Editorial Overview

The primary goal of this project was to provide users with an accurate text that was largely free of editorial interference. In this project, paragraphing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation were rendered as nearly as possible to the original, although some conventionalizing was necessary. The transcripts are intended to be a tool to aid researchers in using and understanding the original letters, not a definitive, fully annotated electronic edition. In addition, they are meant to reproduce only the content of the letters, not their appearance. For example, text written up or around the sides of the paper, or upside down in the tops of margins, appears either as a continuation of a previous paragraph or as a new paragraph, based on continuity of thought.

Readers should not fail to view the scans of the original letters. The creative use of space displayed by some writers (in order to get the most they could from every available inch of paper) must be seen to be appreciated. The transcripts also cannot reproduce the nuances of personality that the original letters convey through handwriting, decoration, and a host of other details.

Many editorial decisions were interpretive and often the result of the editors' familiarity with the individual writers. Because both the transcripts and high-quality scans of the original letters are available at this web site, however, readers will be able to make their own decisions and interpretations, which may differ from those of the editors, especially regarding punctuation and the sequencing of paragraphs within some letters.

Annotation

The nature of this project precluded extensive annotation for people, places, geographic features, plants and animals, or historical events mentioned in the Oblinger letters. In order to aid general readers in understanding the letters, however, annotation is provided where possible for archaic, regional or unusual words or phrases, Biblical or literary references, and medical terms no longer in common usage. Annotation was only to the first mention of the point in a letter and appears as notes placed at the end of each letter.

A separate document includes information about letter writers and letter recipients, immediate family members, and frequently mentioned friends and neighbors. Family trees and detailed information about the Oblinger, Thomas, Bacon, and related families are also available in a separate document.

Paragraphing

Paragraphing followed the writer's usage. No indentation was used to indicate a new paragraph; instead, double spacing was used between paragraphs. Run-on sentences and unparagraphed pages were not broken up artificially. In places where paragraphing was unclear, the editors looked for at least two of the following three elements: a large amount of space at the end of the previous line; placement of an indent, if any, by the writer; and a change of subject. Many writers continued their text along the margins of a letter once the available space was filled. If the continuation was to another part of the page or a different page, a new paragraph was started only if a shift in thought occurred.

Capitalization

Some writers were consistent in the formation of their upper case letters (e.g., Uriah almost always made his capital Ms and Ns with a taller initial stroke); otherwise, individual letters were judged against their rise along the line of writing and compared to the writer's normal usage. For some writers, normal usage was problematic (See Mattie, Giles, and Samuel below).

Punctuation

Some alteration of original punctuation occurred in the letter transcripts. Periods were retained in their currently accepted usage, while random periods that appeared to be pen rests were dropped. The standard two spaces were used following terminal punctuation, including commas, semicolons, and dashes. If it was questionable whether terminal punctuation was a period or comma, the punctuation was rendered according to currently accepted usage. When no terminal punctuation of any sort was supplied, as was the norm for many writers in the Oblinger collection, none was added; rather, three spaces were added at the perceived end of a sentence where no punctuation appeared. On occasion, extra spaces were added in places where the focus of a sentence changed and the sentence was exceptionally long or a run-on, or if interpretation was problematic. These spaces were added to provide clarity and to assist the reader. Double periods used for abbreviation were rendered as a single period. Multiple dashes were entered as two dashes. Quotation marks at the line or base of a word were rendered as regular double quotation marks.

Datelines, Salutations, and Letterhead

The dateline, including place, was standardized to the upper left margin. Each different element (i.e., date, place and/or time) was rendered on a single line. In dates, st, th, and nd following numerals were superscripted in accordance with their appearance in the original letters. Double periods and/or underscoring associated with dates were ignored. In later letters, some writers used a symbol to represent a shorthand version of st, th, and nd following the numerals. This symbol was rendered as a close quotation mark, (i.e., "). Letterhead was not included in the transcripts, as it can be seen on the scans of the original letters; use of letterhead stationery is identified in the footnotes.

Page Numbering

Page numbers, usually found in the top margins of the original letters, were not reproduced in the transcripts and should be ignored when viewing the scans of the originals. In many cases, the page numbers were not supplied by the original letter writers, but are the additions of several later readers and editors. Even a writer's own numbers may be confusing to a modern viewer, as they sometimes represent the number of sheets the writer used, not the number of pages written (e.g., a letter with sheets numbered "1" and "2" could contain four or more pages of text, depending on how the paper was folded and used).

Miscellaneous Textual Issues

Legible stricken-through text was rendered as in the original. Strike-throughs were not included in the transcripts unless they were completely legible. Text bracketed by {Begin deleted text}...{End deleted text} indicates legible stricken-through text in the original. Stricken-through text that could not be read was silently omitted.

Authorial insertions were rendered as in the original. Text bracketed by {Begin inserted text}...{End inserted text} in the transcripts indicates an authorial insertion in the original letter. Refer to the scans of the original letters if bracketed text in a transcript is unclear. Overwrites were considered authorial corrections, and changed or silently respected, as each case required. Partially formed characters were considered unreadable and silently omitted.

Where entire words or phrases could not be read due to bad handwriting, fading, blots, etc., the phrase "illegible text" appears in square brackets. For partially missing words, or obscured parts of words or phrases that were partly legible, the missing elements were supplied in square brackets. This convention was used sparingly, and only when the editors were fairly certain of the word or missing elements. If text was missing entirely (e.g. deliberately removed or from accidental damage), the phrase "missing text" appears in square brackets.

Words split contrary to current usage (e.g., to day, some time, etc.) were left as such in the text. Abbreviated and contracted words were shown as they appeared in the original with or without punctuation. Hyphenated words occurring at the end of a line in the original were silently combined. Unintentionally doubled words were indicated by the term "sic." Handwriting not judged to be the author's was ignored.

Other textual issues were handled in the following manner. Underscoring was retained, and double underlining shown as single underlining. If any part of a word in the original was underlined, the whole word was underlined in the transcript. Uncrossed ts and undotted is were silently corrected following currently accepted spelling. False starts, apparent pen stops, and stray marks were ignored. Signs and symbols, drawings, etc. were not reproduced (e.g., pictograms, or where lines were drawn to separate text from other text). Superscript letters were retained as in the text. In addition, writers used a variety of marks under the superscript letters; such marks were dropped, and no punctuation was added. Readers should refer to the scanned images of the original letters for details.

One other miscellaneous issue common to several writers in the collection involved a problem in rendering their ms and ns. Often it appeared that either they did not supply enough humps to make an m (e.g., the word time appears as tine), or they supplied too many (e.g., the word an appears as am). For writers where this was a consistent rather than an occasional problem (e.g., Mattie, Giles, and Laura), and where the intended word was clear from the context, the use of either m or n was silently corrected for clarity.

Idiosyncrasies of Individual Letter Writers

Other orthographic issues and idiosyncrasies of some individual letter writers are discussed below.

Uriah Wesley Oblinger

Uriah wrote long, periodic sentences, especially when excited or agitated. He used conjunctions frequently, often to string together run-on sentences containing a variety of loosely related topics. Uriah's commas and periods were often indistinguishable, and his sometimes inconsistent use of punctuation made spacing his letters problematic; he occasionally used semicolons as terminal punctuation. A tendency not to capitalize the first word in a sentence complicated this issue.

As far as possible, Uriah's punctuation was followed and standard spacing used. If it was questionable whether terminal punctuation was a period or comma, the punctuation was rendered according to currently accepted usage. Where several complete sentences ran together without the use of conjunctions or punctuation, three spaces were added where the topic shifted, or where more than two complete sentences continued the same general theme without punctuation, conjunctions, or capitalization. On occasion three spaces were added where interpretation of a sentence was problematic.

Mattie Virginia Thomas Oblinger

Mattie used punctuation only sporadically, but she consistently capitalized new sentences. Her capitals were therefore used as guides for the beginning and ending of her sentences. In general, the word I begins a new sentence. On occasion, a sentence beginning with the word I was combined with the previous sentence when both sentences were short and the second appeared to directly continue the thought of the first sentence.

It was sometimes difficult to tell whether Mattie capitalized words beginning with s, because she used two kinds of initial s and each could be interpreted as a capital. In addition she often did not use an upper case S except for proper names (e.g., sabbath; or sunday; Sam). A further complication was her minute handwriting in letters where she appeared to be maximizing every available inch of paper, notably during the Fillmore County period. As noted previously, individual letters were judged against their rise along the line of writing and compared to Mattie's normal usage.

Mattie had a problem writing words with the letters m and n, as discussed above. Words containing a double n sometimes required an additional correction. If Mattie wrote three humps (e.g., dimer) the word was rendered correctly as dinner. If there were only two humps (e.g., diner), the word was rendered with the single n as diner.

Finally, Mattie often wrote the letter u with an extra stroke, causing it to look like a w. In such cases the u was respected and no editorial changes were deemed necessary, but this characteristic makes the interpretation of some words in the original letters more challenging.

Laura Iona Bacon Oblinger

Though Laura's writing was usually clear and readable, in some later letters it appeared to become more careless. She wrote run-on sentences when agitated or keenly interested in a subject, such as health. She usually connected her thoughts with conjunctions, but not always.

Like Uriah, Laura's commas and periods were often indistinguishable, and her sometimes inconsistent use of punctuation made spacing her letters problematic; she occasionally used semicolons as terminal punctuation. A tendency not to capitalize the first word in a sentence complicated this issue. As far as possible, her punctuation was followed and standard spacing used. If it was questionable whether terminal punctuation was a period or comma, the punctuation was rendered according to currently accepted usage. Where several complete sentences ran together without the use of conjunctions or punctuation, three spaces were added where the topic shifted, or where more than two complete sentences continued the same general theme without punctuation, conjunctions, or capitalization. In 1893-94 Laura wrote a series of letters from Wheatland, Missouri. Her handwriting in this period was much less precise. For the first time she also exhibited a consistent problem with the number of humps in her letters m, n, and y, making either too many or too few for her intended words. In words ending in ing, the letters become indistinct. For ease of reading, these problems were silently corrected in the transcripts of the 1893-94 letters only, while similar mistakes were left uncorrected in earlier letters.

Also during the 1893-94 period, Laura began frequent use of punctuation that looked like either a colon or semicolon, and could be terminal or not, depending on usage. These marks were rendered as semicolons; some were used as terminal punctuation.

Giles Stafford Thomas

Giles's writing was extremely difficult to render. Some inconsistencies in editorial interpretation may be inevitable, given the limitations of his handwriting.

Giles punctuated creatively, using dashes both as terminal punctuation and to connect thoughts and phrases within long, run-on sentences. In the transcripts, terminal dashes are followed by two spaces; phrase connections have no spaces.

The editors were usually, but not always, generous when interpreting words containing the syllable ing or ning. For example, Giles frequently wrote moring and evenig for the words morning and evening. His g often had no loop, or an unclosed loop at the top, making it resemble a j, and his n was usually not fully formed. However, the editors did not correct these words or supply characters unless Giles had made an attempt to form a character, however sketchy. In short, something had to be there; characters that were entirely missing were not supplied.

Giles also had a problem with the number of humps in his letters m, n, and y, making either too many or too few for his intended words. Quite frequently his n was formed with only one hump. These problems were corrected silently in the transcripts for ease of reading. In addition, Giles was consistently sloppy when writing the characters a and o (e.g., the word have looks like hove). For clarity, the editors were generous in interpreting these vowels. In addition it was often difficult to determine where he intended to capitalize words beginning with S. Where questionable, it was rendered as a small s unless it began a sentence or was a proper name.

Samuel Oblinger

Samuel used very little punctuation. In general, his letters were spaced where the sentences appeared to break naturally.

As was the case with other writers, determining whether Samuel's letter s was an upper or lower case character at the beginning of words was often difficult. If there was any doubt and the s did not begin a sentence or was not a proper name, the lower case s was used. In addition, his letters o and a were often indistinguishable. For clarity, the editors were generous in rendering words with these characters.

Estella Oblinger Stilgebouer "Stella"

As a teenager (c. 1887), Stella consistently used commas as terminal punctuation. Spaces were added for clarity where her sentences appeared to break naturally. As a married adult, Stella signed her name "Estella."

Maggie Oblinger; Nettie Oblinger; Lillie May Oblinger

As children (c. 1887-94), Maggie, Nettie, and Lillie were generally given the same latitude from the editors where their writing was difficult to read. Maggie in particular had trouble connecting to and from the letter o. Spaces were added for clarity where their sentences appeared to break naturally, because they used very little punctuation.

Sarah A. Oblinger Murray and Jacob Murray

These writers often shared a single sheet of stationery. Both writers were given the benefit of the doubt in their character formation. Spaces were added for clarity where their sentences appeared to break naturally, because neither used much punctuation.


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