Uh oh!! Just as I was about to get into bed for the night, I realized that I had only scheduled automatic posts for this blog through July 1st!! I’d totally forgotten, I thought I’d set them clear through to the middle of the month so that I’d be able to have some time to unwind after all my visiting family members went back home after my brother’s wedding.
     Well nope! Joke’s on me! I didn’t finish all the scheduling cause I’d gotten interrupted halfway through. Poopity poop poop poop.

     I’ve got to go to sleep just now, but I at least wanted to post something short and sweet to say oopsies, I’m sorry! I promise, I’m not giving up on this blog, I just had a little brain fart. After the crazy month I’ve had, I can’t fault myself too terribly much. I just hope you – and the Founders, of course – will forgive me!
     The most disappointing bit for me, though? Argh, I had SO many awesome letters that could have been published on their proper dates!! Including Abigail’s first letter back to John! Crap.
     Oh well, I’m only human. And so were they. Hopefully Abigail will forgive me.

     More posts coming very soon! I promise!!

     After staying up way past my bedtime, scheduling letters to be posted while I’m away attending familial festivities, I ended up having a few ideas that I’d like to run past you. I think they look lovely, but of course, my sleep-deprived mind isn’t exactly at its most trustworthy right now. This headache I’ve had for two days isn’t exactly helping either.
     So if you don’t mind, I’d like to get your opinion on two formatting experiments.

     The first I’m quite excited about; it’s a way to put faces with the names listed in these letters. While I’m sure most of us know the regulars – Jefferson, Washington, Adams – these mainstays sent lots of letters to those Founding Fathers with whom many of us are probably less than familiar. I think that only serves to detach us from the messages in those letters, making them feel rather impersonal and even more foreign than they already are, given the eloquent old world language they’re written in.
     I thought it would be nice to include images of both the drafter of the letter, as well as its recipient, right there are the beginning, to show you who exactly is involved in the conversation we’re reading all these centuries later. I’ve set it up using thumbnails, which if clicked upon, will open the full portrait of the person in question. I’ve set it up on one particular letter from Washington to John Hancock, so you can see what it’ll look like.
     Click here to check it out.
     What do you think? Look good? Too big? Too small? Just right? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it and if you think it would be a good addition to all future letters.

     The second experiment involves my new goal to add as many footnotes to each letter as possible, to further encourage an in depth understanding of the letters and the people who wrote and received them. I’ve started working on writing short bios about the different men and women who received the letters, as well as trying to notate any specific important occurrences referenced in the letters. For instance, in one upcoming letter, John Adams refers to the Boston Port Bill. The letter doesn’t make much sense if it’s not explained precisely what it is he’s referring to, if the reader doesn’t already know. So I wrote a little footnote!
     That’s all well and good, but I’d like your opinion on one experiment in how to format those footnotes. In one particularly long letter, I’ve added little symbols to indicate the presence of a footnote. If you click one of those little symbols, it will scoot you down to the relevant footnote at the bottom of the page. After reading it, you can click “Back” and it’ll push you right back up to where you left off.
     Click here to test it out for yourself.
     I don’t necessarily plan on putting this much work into the shorter letters, since I don’t really think it’s necessary. But I’d like to know if you think it’s helpful for the longer ones.

     Alright, that’s it for now. I need to sleep. More letters coming soon, I promise! I have a whole bunch scheduled all the way through to July! Yippie! And best of all, nearly all of them are going to be republished on the same date that they were originally sent! What could be better than that?

     Hello, everybody! Sorry for the long delay between posts! Things have been pretty hectic at my house; we’ve all been gearing up for my brother’s wedding. Lots of people coming in from out of town, all that good stuff. I hope you’ll excuse me!
     To make up for the delay, I’ve been hard at work this afternoon, making sure that even while I’m busy with the family festivities, there will be new letters scheduled to post automatically in my absence. Yay for Wordpress! The most exciting part about the scheduled letters – for me at least – is that several of them will end up being published on the same date that they were originally sent! I’m excited about that. The only downside is, there will be a teensy bit of a wait before the next Founding Love Letter is published. The next one was sent on June 29, 1774. Since that’s coming up relatively soon, I figured a bit of a delay would be alright.
     But don’t worry, there will be other letters in the meantime! I did just post a new proclamation from General Washington and I have several more scheduled between now and the 29th.

     In addition to all the new letters I’ll be publishing soon, I’ve added a new feature to @FoundingLetters on Twitter! Over the next several months, I’ll be tweeting George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Commandments, each one at a time in easy-to-digest bite-size tweet form! I’ve already posted two from Washington and one from Franklin!
     Click here for our in-house tweets viewer, or you can click here to follow @FoundingLetters on Twitter.com! Please check it out and I hope you’ll enjoy it!

     Ugh. This Wordpress Theme is gonna kill me. One problem after another after another… I’ve been up all night feeling crappy, so I’m really not in the mood to have to deal with this right now and I really need to sleep. But I’m baffled. Maybe I’ll figure it out after I’ve gotten some sleep, who knows, but in the mean time, I at least wanted to apologize for the mess that is the Categories menu over there on the sidebar. I have no clue why some nested subcategories show up just fine, but ‘Individuals’ refuses to line up its subcategories properly. I need that category, I need it to differentiate the letters sent from Jefferson to Adams and Jefferson’s letters to everybody else. It’s being naughty and I don’t know how to punish it. Behave, dang you!
     Anybody have any ideas? I checked to see if maybe the widget had a constrained height somewhere, but I didn’t see anything. I’m totally at a loss. The ‘Love Letters’ category has more subcategories and sub-subcategories than ‘Individuals’, yet it’s showing its hierarchy just fine! It’s behaving itself! Why can’t ‘Individuals’ do that too?
     I’m gonna sleep now. Or at least try. I sure hope Jefferson or Franklin or somebody will appear to me in a dream and tell me how to fix this stupid thing, otherwise I dunno…
     In the mean time, enjoy the new letter from Washington!

     I’ve been busily transcribing some letters in preparation for future posts this evening, but I came across a letter that’s just too funny not to post. I was literally laughing out loud as I was transcribing the words of Thomas Jefferson in his younger days and it has convinced me that I absolutely must forgo any attempts to post each and every letter on the exact same date that they were originally sent. Otherwise I would have to wait to post this ridiculously awesome letter until Christmas! I just can’t do it, I can’t contain myself! When you see this particular letter, hopefully you’ll understand why. Suffice it to say, who knew Jefferson was such a ladies man!

     So I’ve decided that I’m only going to attempt to keep up with the original dates of the letters sent specifically between Jefferson & Adams. But in the meantime, I’m going to fill up the time between those letters with a random assortment of letters from other Founders. The letters of each individual Founder will be posted in their chronological order, of course, so that you can keep up with the back-and-forth of each person’s timeline as best as possible.

     I’ve also decided to include short biographies of the individual Founders whose letters I’ll be featuring on the site. I’ve found some fabulous books from the late 19th century that are quite fantastic and provide very concise biographies of many of the Founders I’ll be featuring. Unfortunately the book neglects to include Jefferson, so I’m afraid I might have to write that one myself. We’ll see.

     Hehe, oh, I so can’t wait. Things are really coming together! I really think you’re going to love Jefferson’s letters, they’re quite entertaining. At least, they are to me. I’m only two letters in and already I’ve glimpsed a side of Jefferson I’d never, ever seen before. I suddenly have even more respect for the man, as a man, rather than the cold, distant legend we’re all taught to revere. And it’s absolutely marvelous!

     I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how best to go about publishing new letters. I was looking through the big book I have of the Adams & Jefferson letters and, sure enough, there’s quite a big gap between each of the letters. After all, it’s not like they had access to email. Adams’ reply to Jefferson wasn’t sent until May 26, and Jefferson’s next letter wasn’t sent until August! So clearly my original plan of publishing each letter on the same date that it was originally sent wasn’t so very well thought out. Not surprising, since I started working on building this site about ten minutes after the thought first popped into my head! Clearly our modern desires for instant gratification are clashing with the timelines of history.

     So what to do? I have a couple ideas, but I’d like to run the three options I’ve thought up so far past all of you to see what you think. Granted, it’s not like there are a lot of readers here yet, but the few readers I do have are all good friends whose judgment I value and trust. So who better to ask, right?
    I’ve created a little poll with the three options I’ve thought up so far. If you could take a minute to pick which one you like best, I’d really appreciate it! Or if you’ve got a better idea, I’d love to hear that too!

     Thank you! I’ll let you know what I decide a little later on. And of course, new letters are coming soon!

     I’m exceedingly pleased to announce that very soon, Founding Letters will be expanding to include the letters of several additional Founding Fathers! And better yet, we’re even including a Founding Mother!

     Our first new addition will be the letters of our nation’s true Father, our first President, the great George Washington. I’m thrilled to include his voice with Jefferson and Adams, since no collection of founding documents could ever be complete without Washington.

     Of course, in my own humble opinion, no collection of founding documents could ever be complete without the words of the women who served as our nation’s Founding Mothers as well. They often don’t get quite as much attention as the likes of Washington, Jefferson, or Adams, but they deserve our love, admiration, respect, and reverence just as much as their husbands. As the old saying goes, behind every great man, is a great woman. I think it’s high time we get to know those great women!
    So we’ll be kicking off a brand new category of writings, Founding Love Letters. Not many people are familiar with the softer side of our American revolution. It was the men and their wives who formed the marriage of our union, ultimately giving birth to our nation. I think it’s high time we celebrate the love between the Founding Fathers and their remarkable wives.
    Our very first collection of Founding Love Letters will be the entirety of the correspondence between John Adams and his fascinating wife, Abigail. Their marriage, their relationship, was unique in so many ways. Abigail was a strong, independent, intelligent woman who cared deeply for her husband, her family, and her country. Her husband’s duties often kept him away from her and the family home, which left Abigail to run a household almost entirely on her own. But her mind was always with her husband, and her intense intelligence kept her curious about the finer points of the burgeoning revolution. The letters John and Abigail sent back and forth contain a fascinating history of the daily affairs of the Continental Congress, as Abigail would constantly request details of what John and his colleagues were up to as they fought to form a new nation.
    But what makes this history so particularly special, is the context in which it was written. These intimately imparted stories of our founding are wrapped in flowery words of love and longing between a husband and wife, separated for long periods of time as they both strive to fulfill their duties to the country they love. This is truly the most personal, heartfelt way to learn about the founding of our nation, and the men and women to whom we owe our freedoms.

     I hope you’ll stick around for these new additions to the site! I have a lot of ideas, plans, and questions to bounce off you all. But I’m hoping that all of you will contribute by adding your own comments, thoughts, ideas and suggestions, so that this project can blossom into something special.

     The domain finally came through! This is it, we’re home! Let’s kick this history stuff off properly, shall we?

     I’ve been informed by my good friend Stephen that Thomas Jefferson was a very big proponent of RSS feeds, so of course, in his honor, I will shortly be setting one up for this blog. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Jefferson while he’s up there in Heaven, now would we?
    More developments coming along, I promise!