A Guide to the Sarah Amanda McDowell Letters
A Collection in
The Special Collections Department
Accession Number 4618-b
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Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections LibraryUniversity of Virginia
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USA
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Funding: Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Processed by: Special Collections Department
Administrative Information
Access Restrictions
There are no restrictions.
Use Restrictions
See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.
Preferred Citation
Sarah Amanda McDowell Letters, Accession #4618-b, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
Acquisition Information
The collection was a gift to the library from Mr. and Mrs. Homer G. Richey of Charlottesville, Virginia, on 22 June 1983.
Scope and Content Information
The collection consists of seventy-seven letters from Sarah "Sallie" Amanda McDowell (1833-1916) of "Merry Oaks" in Talbot County, Shiloh, Bellevue, and Griffin, Georgia, to her cousin, Amanda Sarah Boyd (1833- 1918), Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. The letters contain news of family, health, weather, farming, church and social activities, and life in general. Topics of interest in her letters include McDowell's changing opinions regarding blacks, her distrust of Texas as a place to live, the burning of her home, her trips to various towns, and relatives. There are brief mentions of local crimes and of an opium addiction in two family members. As a whole, the letters give an excellent picture of life in the late nineteenth century among members of a formerly well-to-do family.
Included in the collection is an 1864 letter from John M. McDowell, a Confederate soldier in Company A, Polk's Regiment, Hawthorne's Brigade, Churchill Division, to an unidentified cousin. He refers to the battle of Mansfield (Sabine Crossroads) and Jenkins' Ferry, and discusses military life. There are also two letters from Malinda Keith to her niece, Amanda Boyd, pertaining to family matters, and a 1916 letter from Day E. McDowell (wife of McDowell's nephew) to Amanda Boyd regarding the death of Sarah Amanda McDowell.