LMED 100 / 110

Hastings, Lucy A.  Family correspondence, 1838, 1855-1874 [Transcriptions], Eau Claire SC 35, Eau Claire Area Research Center, McIntyre Library, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire.

Lucy A. Hastings and her husband David Smead Hastings moved to Wisconsin from Massachusetts.  They arrived in Oxford, Wisconsin in 1855 and relocated to Eau Claire in 1857.  Lucy Hastings’s letters provide a glimpse into the lives of Eau Claire’s early white settlers.

Click on the link above to read transcriptions of 25 letters written by Lucy and David Smead Hastings.  Once finished reading them, answer the following questions.

1. Lucy Hastings traveled far from home to settle in Wisconsin.  What does she miss about Massachusetts?  What does she like about Eau Claire?
   
   
   
2. How do Lucy and David Smead Hastings earn money? 
   
   
   
3. Lucy Hastings appears to have been in poor health. What do we know about her condition?  What specific illnesses do she and her husband mention in their letters?
   
   
   
4. Do her impressions of American Indians change over time?  If yes, how and why?
   
   
   
5. In several letters, Lucy asks the recipient not to keep or to burn her writing.  Why do you think she wishes her letters to be destroyed?  Do you think it is ethical that her letters are available to the public to read today?
   
   
   
6. What did you find most surprising or interesting about Lucy Hastings’s correspondence?
   
   
   
7. Extra Credit! Come into the archives and look at the original letters written by Lucy Hastings. Is the experience of reading the originals difference than reading digital copies of the transcripts online? Whether your answer is yes or no, please reflect on how or why you came to your answer.