Research Project: Digitizing Local Letters from World War II

Pursuing her interest in history, Jennifer Marks embarked on a research project to create the first online digital archives of World War II-era letters from Kirksville citizens for the Century America Project. The letters, which are part of a collection housed in Special Collections at Truman State University’s Pickler Memorial Library, represent the voices of the Great War. Sorting through around 100 letters, Jennifer selected a diverse representation to digitize with help from the Library’s Digital Collections staff. Learning about each step of the process, she spent many hours organizing and editing the materials, scanning the letters, and uploading the information to the “No Man’s Land” website. Along the way, she discovered that deciphering old hand-crafted letters can be a difficult task since handwriting styles have changed over time.