{"value"=>"<p>The correspondence is among members of the Emerson family in Europe, the United States, and, after the turn of the century, Japan. There are some letters in French, German, and shorthand. These letters originate from several generations of the Emerson and Ingham families, some more distant relatives, and friends, and are arranged roughly chronologically - the materials received later were arranged by decade and interfiled with the earlier correspondence. These letters are unusual in a family collection for the wide range of topics outside of family concerns that they contain. Writers on both sides of the Atlantic make comparisons between life in the United States and abroad, and there are substantive discussions of United States national politics, current events, religious questions, and business and economic trends such as: the progress of the Civil War and its political, economic, and social effects; elections, etc. Of particular interest in the correspondence is the Emerson family's interest in new technology. During the 1860s there is discussion of the developing science of photography, and beginning in the 1880s members of the Emerson family bought typewriters and there are many discussions, descriptions, and demonstrations of the new machine. At around the same time, the family became interested in bicycles and, again, there are detailed discussions, sometimes accompanied by sketches, of the types of bicycles bought, their prices and attributes, bicycle trips taken, and the number of miles ridden each day by family members. The interest in technology extended to an interest in medical progress. Family members report on the technical details of medical procedures performed on themselves and their spouses and children. George Emerson's treatment for clubfeet in 1867 while the family was in London is among the procedures described.</p> <p>Additional correspondence can be found in series III-XIII.</p>"}