Shopping Stories Transcription Project - Letters

About

Eighteenth-century merchants kept ledgers that recorded purchases, account holders, and payments. In contrast, they kept letterbooks as a record of the letters sent to the various stakeholders associated with the business - other merchants, ship captains, customers, etc. Through the use of store ledgers, History Revealed through its Shopping Stories project hopes to develop a prosopography to uncover consumer interests, lives, and the larger community of people in the 18th century with its present focus on Virginia stores, specifically in Colchester and Alexandria. This phase of the project looks to better understand the time period without associated ledgers or to identify correspondence that complements known ledgers (already transcribed or included as part of the Shopping Stories Transcription Project) by focusing on the letters between the stores and their stakeholders.

Works

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Harrison & Hooe Letterbook, 1789-1796 (Images 102-199)

Robert Townsend Hooe partnered with Richard Harrison (of Alexandria, Virginia and later, Cadiz, Spain) to run a store in Alexandria, Virginia, from 1778 through at least 1790. Letters in this Work include correspondence with both national and international merchants, business partners, ship...

Collaboration is restricted.

93 pages: 30% complete (3% indexed, 46% transcribed, 16% needs review)