Letterlocking: Brienne Postal Archive: Diagonal Rectangles, France (1695, 1700) (UH0071, UH0251)

Modelled after letters DB-495 and DB-2269 in the Brienne Collection, Sound & Vision, with permission. Letter DB-495 (UH0251)is from a man called Gallois writing to his brother in 1700 apologizing for the lack of communication; he has not been near a post office for a few months, since he was in a chateau in the forest of Orléans and was sick in bed for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the letter never arrived, because French postal services misread the address and sent the letter to The Hague in Holland, instead of the village of Port-de-Piles near La Haye in the Touraine region. Letter DB-2269 (UH0071), dated 16 October 1695 (known from a declaration of the town council) is from France (Orange, via Valence, in the south). The civilian author seems to be a persecuted Huguenot who is trying to help family who had fled to the Dutch Republic. The letter includes testimony from consuls of the city of Orange that the family really is from Orange, a status which would give them access to special funds. Letterpackets such as these found in the Brienne Collection are quite small, averaging 110mm x 65mm to 128mm x 70mm, and fit easily in the palm of a hand. Their exteriors look deceivingly similar to one another but, upon opening, the folding patterns are surprisingly varied. These two letters from the Brienne Collection fold and close with an adhesive holding down a single layer edge flap. They are nicknamed “diagonal rectangles” based on the folding pattern visible on the letter substrate when the letters are opened. The letterpackets reduce to similarly small packets; however, when opened, one substrate (DB-2269) is three times bigger than the other. We have news! Since this filming, our team of 11 researchers worked together to read an unopened letter virtually – the words and the folds – for the first time, without ever breaking its seal. What does the letter say? Head to our website https://www.letterlocking.org to learn all the details and celebrate the launch of letterlocking! Read our findings in our Nature Communications article, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21.... Visit our Dataverse, our open repository for data collected for this project: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataver.... In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was given to the Museum voor Communicatie – now Sound & Vision – in The Hague, which was then, as now, the center of government, politics, and trade in The Netherlands. The trunk belonged to two of the most active postmasters of the day, Simon de Brienne and Marie Germain, a couple at the heart of European communication networks. The chest contains an extraordinary archive: 2600 "locked" letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered. The letters are uncensored, unedited, and 600 of them even remain unopened. The Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered research team comprises Rebekah Ahrendt, Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, David van der Linden, and Daniel Starza Smith. Thanks to Koos Havelaar, Ruben Verwaal, and the Unlocking History team. Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed and demonstrated by Jana Dambrogio. Funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries. Special thanks to Ayako Letizia, Annie Dunn and Kate Cherian, Emily Hishta Cohen, Mary Uthuppuru, Brien Beidler, and the late Simone Felton. Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio and the Unlocking History research group. "Brienne Postal Archive: Diagonal Rectangles, France (1695, 1700)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0071, UH0251/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 0071. Date filmed: September 2016. Duration: 7:04. Date posted: October 2016. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date]. Copyright 2016. Jana Dambrogio, Daniel Starza Smith, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries. NB: Letterlock responsibly. Be mindful of open flames or hot tools in the workspace. To find out more about letterlocking, visit http://letterlocking.org and follow us on social media @letterlocking. For more information about letters in the Brienne Collection, visit the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered project website, http://www.brienne.org. Follow our collaborators @misswalsingham @NWOHumanities @MITLIbraries @LeidenHum @dcvanderlinden. YouTube URLhttp://bit.ly/DiagonalRectangles or    • Letterlocking: Brienne Postal Archive: Dia...