Series 5 - Rose McCormack Williams letters

2 sub-series

Copies of the Rose McCormack Williams letters were donated to Kerby A. Miller by Rose Olive McDonnell in January, 1978.

Materials related to the Rose McCormack Williams letters. Rose McCormack was born around 1842 in Cummerstown, County Westmeath and emigrated with her family to New Orleans around 1850, not long after which both parents and three of her siblings died from either cholera or accidents, leaving her orphaned at a very young age. Rose's second letter details these circumstances and where she and her surviving siblings are as of writing in 1879, including her going to work as soon as she came of age and currently running a grocery store in New Orleans. Professor Kerby A. Miller views this letter as a kind of 'autobiographical letter' and writes the following of this genre: 'less common but more valuable, are memoirs that are framed, almost incidentally, in letter formats. In these documents, the autobiographical data are presented in chronological and/or topically linear, consistent, and coherent formats. Also, the autobiographical data comprise most of the total document. I.e., the letter is primarily a vehicle for the conveyance of the memoir.' Series includes: typed copies of the letters; Kerby A. Miller's research notes and correspondence; copies of secondary sources related to the history of New Orleans; genealogical research; census research.