The Edward Crowell Letters are one of our richest sources describing the early years of life at Norwich. By 1839, the year that Edward Crowell started as a student at Norwich, the University had already attained a reputation for a more pragmatic, cost-effective, and innovative educational experience than the nation’s oldest institutions.
Crowell’s letters show he was thoroughly impressed with this new system of education. Even as he endured wintertime chills of 34 degrees “below the cipher,” chopping his own wood, and running out of pants, Crowell became convinced that he was learning more useful lessons at Norwich than at colleges where he would be “compelled…to nod and slumber over Latin and Greek in order to obtain a diploma.”
In an era before even the earliest photography became commercially available, Crowell’s artistic capture of the Norwich buildings and Captain Partridge’s physiognomy is a standout example of self-illustration – although he qualifies that in it, “the Captain is too severe looking."
Throughout Crowell’s letters to his parents, David and Rebecca Crowell, and brother Josiah, the charms and frustrations of pre-industrial communication are put on display. For example, he bids them tell another relation, James, to kindly pay his letters’ postage before they arrive in Norwich: In another, he bids them not to write inside of newspapers they send for fear the miserly postmaster will count them as letters and increase the rate.
For scholars of this time period, the Crowell Letters are a valuable portrait of the letter as a literary genre. Edward Crowell emphasizes some of his experiences and minimizes others. He elaborates on gallant wintertime expeditions up Mount Ascutney, and the many merits of his college President. He doesn’t write as much about how he got a knife blade run through his knee!
All the letters in this collection have been digitized and can be read online in our digital collections.
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