Last year, we acquired Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter by Jana Dambrogio and Daniel Starza Smith for our reference collection. Letterlocking refers to the practice of folding a piece of paper (or other writing substrate, like parchment or papyrus) so that it functions as its own envelope. I had seen Jana present this research at the Guild of Book Workers’ annual Standards of Excellence seminar several years earlier and, after reading the book, I was inspired to develop a basic workshop to introduce my colleagues to letterlocking and the excellent resources created by Jana, Daniel, and the Unlocking History team.

Libraries Summer Camp (LSC) was a natural place to try it. LSC has become a bit of a summer programming tradition since 2019 and brings staff from across Duke’s libraries together for professional development and community-focused activities. Anyone who works at a Duke campus library can propose a session or participate, making it a welcome opportunity to learn from colleagues you might not otherwise encounter. Sessions focused on hands-on activities are very popular, and letterlocking seemed like the perfect blend of history, craft, and connecting to special collections. I proposed an hour-long session to introduce the concept of letterlocking, show participants what evidence a locked letter might leave behind, and guide them through three folding exercises based on historical letters.

Researchers typically encounter manuscript letters already opened and unfolded, stored in folders that are arranged inside standard archival boxes. It may not be obvious if or how a sheet was once folded and secured by the original sender. Before the workshop, I made two models of each letter and deliberately tore one open. I used a highlighter to color in the sections of the sheet that would be on the outside of the letterpacket.  Participants could then compare the intact and opened versions to see the characteristic discoloration, tears, perforations, and/or losses that locking might leave on a sheet.

We began our folding exercises by modeling a very simple structure used in an 1847 letter by Emily Dickinson (UH6180): a few folds and a tuck, secured with a sticker. The complexity of each structure increased as new manipulations and concepts were introduced. The next model was based on a 1774 letter by Phillis Wheatley (see UH0227, including video demonstration), which required more folding and tucking before being secured with a wax seal. We applied sealing wax using a hot glue gun loaded with wax sticks. While very different from the wax application systems or products of the past, the glue gun allowed us to work in a classroom setting safely (no open flames) and was quite efficient for 12 people to share.

Finally, we made a packet based on a letter by Tomaso di Levrieri (see UH0004, including video demonstration), a sixteenth-century Venetian writer, with a triangular lock cut from the letter sheet.

The workshop was a lot of fun! For those of us whose technical services work can be siloed and production-focused, it is so refreshing to connect with colleagues and try something new. Many participants said they learned something about historical letter writing materials and practices from the session.

A few months later, a librarian connected me with Duke Professor Jennifer Ahern-Dodson, who was looking for someone to help students in her Writing 235S course engage with historical writing tools and materials. The course, titled Writing Tools and Human Agency, asks students to consider how writing tools, from pencils and erasers to generative AI, might affect the ways people write, think, and create. Letterlocking seemed like a good way to explore some of those questions through the lens of how letter writers in the past might select different writing materials and then choose to secure a message for its journey.

The second workshop used a lot of the same content as the first session with library staff, but we started with a broad overview of historical epistolary substrates, including papyrus, parchment, and hand-made paper. I brought samples of each of these materials so that students could physically touch and manipulate them, comparing the writing surfaces and their working characteristics. As we moved through the same three folding and sealing exercises, we talked about why writers might have prepared their correspondence in these ways: the costs of different materials, the logistics of sealing with wax or a starch wafer, and why a tamper-evident seal may be an important component.

I also brought a few original eighteenth- and nineteenth-century letters (not collection items) with me that had been folded and sealed with similar techniques, giving students a chance to hold and closely examine physical letters from the past. Several of them remarked on the quality of penmanship on these letters, noting how different the writing looked from their own. I know that some of the students have experience conducting research with manuscript collections in the reading room, but hopefully this workshop was a good introduction to the special collections library for those who might be unfamiliar.

This workshop was designed to get library staff and students to pay attention to small details when working with cultural heritage materials. The words on the page are often the primary focus for a researcher, but we can learn so much from the materials and evidence of use. In this case, just looking for areas of discoloration, creases, and holes might help you to reconstruct how a letter was written, closed, transported, and then opened again. I very much enjoyed adapting and teaching this material to two very different groups on campus. I am so grateful for resources like letterlocking.org and the accompanying textbook for the historical examples and diagrams that I could use to share these concepts. Maybe the next time we run a workshop like this, we can model specific letters from Duke’s manuscript collections.