Letterlocking – Unlocking History
Welcome to letterlocking! You can find essential information about letterlocking and the Unlocking History research team on this page. We will be updating the website regularly, including major uploads to the Dictionary of Letterlocking (DoLL) – so please check in periodically, and follow us on social media for all the news @letterlocking.
We have News! Pub date: November 19, 2024
Letterlocking
The Hidden History of the Letter
MIT Press
What is Letterlocking?
Letterlocking refers to the technology of folding and securing an epistolary writing substrate (a sheet of papyrus, parchment, or paper) to function as its own envelope – a vital communications technology before the invention of the mass-produced envelope in the 1830s. A full definition of letterlocking can be found in the Dictionary of Letterlocking (DoLL).
What is Letterlocking documentary? (2015)
The documentary introduces the novel field of letterlocking while offering a glimpse into a day of shooting instructional videos. Produced, directed, and edited by Vincent Thuet, freelance editor and videographer. Funded by The Seaver Institute, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries.
What is Letterlocking? (2019)
Jana Dambrogio and Daniel Starza Smith, co-inventors of the field of Letterlocking explain what is letterlocking thanks to our friends at the Harvard University Derek Bok Center for Teaching & Learning
Resources
Documenting the physical details of well-preserved letters has helped us identify distinctive locking styles, develop categories, assign security scores, and identify authentication enhancements. Our resources explain the key differences between 64 categories – and show you how to model many of them.
With practice, you will be able to examine flattened historical letters in libraries and archives, and make models. A letter’s form may be related to the content contained within, and our resources will help you understand that relationship while assigned a packet a security score too.
Instructional Videos
Virtually read old unopened letters!
The letter below is one of 577 UNOPENED letters found in the Brienne Collection. Our team of 11 researchers worked together to read virtually the contents – the words and the folds – for the first time, without ever breaking its seal.
What does the letter say? Read transcriptions and translations into English here.
See this image of an opened letter, directly below this text? It’s been read virtually for the first time in 300 years–without ever breaking its seal! Here’s a link to our article in Nature Communications that explains this extraordinary computational breakthrough. Read our article here.
The Dictionary of Letterlocking (DoLL)
DoLL will give you the language to describe what you are seeing and doing as you explore letterlocking.
Imaging & Conservation
The study of letterlocking is important for the preservation of documents because it informs us about the value of the evidence that the manipulations – the creases, slits, and holes – offer. #PreserveTheFolds.
Letter-writing materials tools & techniques
The study of letterlocking encompasses research into the materials, tools, and techniques of writing. Studying the material aspects of letter-writing – the quality of paper, for example, or the specific way wax was applied – offers researchers a chance to gain a richer understanding of past means of communication, and allows them to explore what is expressed by a document beyond its written text. Unlocking History members have experimented with replicating the conditions of early modern letter-writing – making ink and wax according to early recipes, working with handmade paper, and attempting to break into locked letters undetected, as if we were seventeenth-century spies. We also study the ways in which developments in communication technologies interact with language, literature, and culture throughout history (for example, when we talk about giving someone "the seal of approval").
Working towards openness & accessibility
The Unlocking History research group is committed to promoting equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice. Letterlocking practices crossed the world over many hundreds of years, and letterlocking was used by people from an enormous range of backgrounds and cultures. We seek to tell a truly global story. In 2020, we established an internal fund to support research into equitable research and teaching practices, so that we can continue to build them into the heart of the project.
The Unlocking History research group values linguistic diversity. Please see our initiative to translate the Letterlocking definition. UNESCO recognizes that the global preservation of languages works toward cultural tolerance and that “languages and multilingualism can advance inclusion.” We hope that by translating letterlocking terms we will help link historical and cultural traditions, advance inclusion, and connect with other individuals studying letterlocking but may refer to the practice by another name.
The Unlocking History team is developing a system to make our resources accessible. Please check back for updates.
The Team
Unlocking History is the name for our group of conservators, paleographers, literary scholars, historians, publishers, book-artists, imaging experts, engineers, and scientists who are interested in the historical practice of letterlocking. We want to make sure letters are conserved properly so that they can be studied for the verifiable secrets they reveal. The material features of letters can speak to us about the past, but in order to hear them we have to learn their language. The Unlocking History Research team is dedicated to bringing together all the tools we need to do so – a dictionary, instructional videos, images, and hands-on workshops in libraries, museums, universities, and schools around the world.
Please consider making
a gift to letterlocking via the
Archive Collections Fund (2780500).
Page updates added: 14 April 2024