Browse Exhibits (1 total)

Today, it may seem difficult to imagine that people living more than a hundred years ago experienced and grappled with many of the same significant life changes and emotional difficulties that we find ourselves battling every day. In this collection of letters home from two Berea College students at the turn of twentieth century, we examine the persistence of family bonds and the familiar struggle of navigating the college experience while dealing with homesickness and academic rigor. Through this grand selection of letters from Harold Johnston of New York and Daisy Nickum of Ohio between 1899 and 1903, we piece together a moving and humanizing picture of these two students' rich familial and emotional selves. Via this rare, near-complete collection of letters to family from students at Berea College, there is a glimpse of their emotional lives. While they were hacking away at coursework, and slogging through labor, they were always finding time in between to write back home. Though the context has changed, how we experience familial love and adjustment to extensive and sometimes scary changes are timeless. These letters provide an insight into the persistence of emotion and experience through history in ways that still resonate with readers today.