Wade Hall Collection of American Letters: About the Collection

Through a National Endowment for the Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Grant awarded in 2018, the project "P.S. Write Again Soon": Revealing 200 years of the American Mosaic through the Wade Hall Collection of American Letters has focused on making available the materials in the collection through publishing of collection guides and digitization of select collections.

The Wade Hall Collection of American Letters is a collection of personal papers assembled and created by a broad range of individuals that reflects the American experience over time. The collection covers over 200 years of American history, representing all fifty states. The materials discuss social, economic, religious, racial, ethnic, geographical, and professional issues; document military conflicts from the Revolutionary to the Vietnam Wars, and show the private lives of Americans.

Types of materials found in the Wade Hall Collection include:

• Letters
• Diaries
• Scrapbooks
• Newspapers
• Photographs
• Journals
• Military memorabilia

Wade Hall was a passionate collector and donated a significant amount of his collection to the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center (SCRC). The Wade Hall Collection of American Letters relates to many archival holdings within SCRC and complements SCRC’s main areas of collecting focus including public policy, military history, gender and women’s studies, and Kentucky history.

SCRC’s commitment to providing students with experiential learning using primary sources is enhanced by the Wade Hall Collection by increasing the availability of documents on a variety of topics with a national scope. Due to the letters being written from the perspective of the everyday person, students can better relate to the materials and will be able to see themselves through this lens of first-hand struggle, fear, joy, and growth.