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Privacy Writes: Public Lives/Personal Letters

July 1 - September 28, 2003

Privacy Writes reveals the personal letters of influential eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Americans, which suggest that forming a more perfect union and ensuring domestic tranquility were both national aspirations and private endeavors. Using materials from the Rosenbach's Americana collections, Curator and Director of Collections Judith Guston presents an intimate perspective into the unseen lives and innermost thoughts of Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and other prominent Americans during times of great political change and Constitutional reform.

The exhibition includes:

• the earliest extant letter by George Washington - written when he was 17 years old;
  
• a letter by John Adams to his 4-year-old son (right);
  
• a sketch of Benjamin Franklin by David - a rare informal depiction;
  
• a letter revealing Adams' *true* opinion of Ben Franklin;
  
• letters from Thomas Jefferson to his friend William Fleming, detailing experiences of courtship, love and loss.