THE ENTIRE COLLECTION

The People Who unearthed the TJ Story

Thomas Jackson sought the help of his English cousins Caleb & William Slater to get his words heard across the miles during the civil war.

Now in order to get his words also heard across the years, Thomas would want us to thank the extensive community of remarkably diverse people who contributed their expertise and encouragement to allow his spirit and his fierce commitment to abolish slavery and to promote freedom to be heard again.

Here are just some of those who have been most helpful.

Irvin Rathman and his fellow volunteers – Historical Society of Berks County.
Irvin took a chaotic collection of photocopies of many of these letters and meticulously transcribed and organized them and thus gave life to this whole project. He has continued to add astonishing depth to our understanding of the Thomas Jackson story ever since. So much so that if there is one person whose support, historical knowledge and dedication has brought the TJ letters into the light of the 21st century, it would be Irvin. For over two decades, he has shown a unremitting dedication to make the TJ story as complete as possible;

Irvin Rathman with colleague Lisa Adams

Neil Scheidt also from Reading who has provided extensive assistance in discovering the genealogy of Thomas Jackson and Caleb Slater and their relatives as well as unearthing important details of T J’s life in Reading. Neil is a prolific contributor to documenting the memorials and dedications of individuals from past generations, particularly US veterans.

He alone has documented over 67,867  (yes! ) memorial records in Findagrave.  He too has been a patient and ever supportive resource of the Thomas Jackson project from our earliest days.

Neil Scheidt with first digital record of TJ’s grave

Phil Whiddon, Livewire Web Design, was our first web designer who literally drafted out the format for our  original website on the back of an envelope as the depths of our project were first described to him. The appeal of our project for the first decade of our existence was fueled by his enthusiastic commitment to take the scans and transcriptions of the many old manuscripts and present them in a digital format while keeping the feel of the vintage period from which they arose.

He left the project with a format that is easily navigated and expandable so that it appropriately displays TJ’s historical observations through the medium of modern technologies.

Phil Whiddon whose early design for the site added to its universal appeal.

Frank Ward, another early member of our team whose encouragement and endless enthusiasm for the project has continued until the present day. It was he who transformed the Ambassadors’’ minds when he recognized from the piles of the then disorganized letters that TJ’s ongoing driving force was working to abolish slavery. (Easy to see now but not so as we were ploughing through piles of letters by many authors covering an enormous variety  of topics.)

Michelle Krowl, Civil War and Reconstruction Specialist, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress who has been a major blessing to our project in that her interest and encouragement reinforced our on-going efforts that this huge project was indeed worth continuing. She helped keep our light of passion alight when we came to recognize that our intended “just a few months” turned into nearly two decades of time devoted to different aspects of the project.  Her constant willingness to give professional input and fresh perspectives have ben a constant source of positive energy to our project.

Michael Knight (US National Archives & Records Administration) was the first person with a nationally recognized reputation to read the materials in detail and offer his detailed personal assessment of the high historical value of the collection.  Until then, the Ambassadors had no confidence that all those old and disorganized documents were of major value as a unique window to the civil war.

Clearly most of the value of the Thomas Jackson collection comes from his detailed reporting on life in America. However, we suspected that his upbringing must have influenced the person that we encounter in his letters as an adult. Yet we knew very little about his English roots. We did know that he grew up in the small town of Ilkeston in central England and that his father, John, was a passionate supporter of the American colonies. But that was about all.

Until very recently, our knowledge of this area of Thomas Jackson’s life was very limited and our previous efforts to unearth more details had been notably unsuccessful. Then recently two new British partners joined our team. Our current knowledge of the details of the Thomas Jackson story in England is greatly indebted to each of these people.

The first is Dave Johnson, who unilaterally has put together a most comprehensive and admirable account of life in Ilkeston predominantly in the Victorian area (See https://www.oldilkeston.co.uk). On learning of Thomas Jackson’s references to his upbringing while still in England, Dave became passionate to interrelate TJ’s memories with his own existing detailed knowledge of the history of the town. He took it upon himself to explore virtually all of the genealogical connections and relationships of the Jackson family and has kindly passed that on to us. Much of his impressive work is now incorporated in the pages of the Entire collection of the TJ papers.

 

The second person is Celia Renshaw who has demonstrated extensive professional experience in knowing how and where to look when following up often slim clues about the people she researches. Her professional thoroughness and academic insistence on clear evidence have led to our recognition that some of deductions that we had made from our previous records were in fact wrong!  The factual value of the TJ collection is significantly improved thanks to her input.

 

She has also made significant contributions to our knowledge about the pivotal events relating to Thomas Jackson’s colorful father and his recorded crimes and bankruptcies. Thanks to her, we can appreciate the unsettling political times in England during TJ’s up bringing and the many political dissenters including his father.

 

Because the project has been so long has been active for so long, there are many people particularly in America to whom this present site owes debt of gratitude. Among them are many others who would never think of themselves as historians but who gave the ambassadors valuable support.

In addition, here are just some of the many others, most who would never think of themselves as historians,  who gave significant support:

Jan Swanbeck (Documents Librarian, University of Florida)

Joe Aufmuth & Carol McAuliffe  (Also librarians, University of Florida)

Stephanie Birch (Librarian in African American Studies at Unversities of Florida and Connecticut. (For analyzing all the site’s contents and producing the basis of our topic search feature)

Lisa Adams, Kimberly R. Brown and their colleagues of Historical Society of Berks County, Reading PA.

George M. Meiser & Gloria Jean Meiser. Authors “The Passing Scene” series of books on the history of Reading and Berks, PA

Bill Rehr (Former fire chief for Reading for records about the arson attacks on TJ’s business.)

Ron Devlin (Historian & Reporter for Reading Eagle)

Leila and Don Lohr (Friends who’s own enthusiasms for the raw materials were the basis of our Highlights section)

Maria Miller.  (Transcriber & versatile assistant during the Covid Pandemic)

Alyssa Lewis (Transcriber & dedicated assistant during the Covid Pandemic)

Jamison Davis (Virginia Historical Society)

Stephen Spears (Author for advice)

Deborah Hendrix (A multitalented video and digital technologist from Department of Oral History at UF)

John Sensbach (History Faculty, University of Florida)

Jerry Sanford (Collaborator)

John Huddleston (Collaborator)

Parker & Natalie Small (long term friends and wise humanitarians)

Barbara Oberlander  & Donna Waller (Respected civil war historians)

Marilyn Mundy (US National Archives & Records Administration)

Alexia Fernandez (for help in transcribing letters and professional journalist.)

Sally &Andrew Casey (English relatives of the David Machin, the second Ambassador)

Gina & Peter Donaldson (English relatives of the David Machin, the second Ambassador)

Tricia & James Falconer Smith (long term English friends, with their own family history collections)

Dianne Irish (ever patient and supportive wife and life partner. No words of gratitude could ever be adequate.)

Robert Elliott (long enduring and generous supporter)

James Lazarus (constant enthusiast and invariable optimist for life)

WEB DESIGNERS

Dennis Plunkett and staff at Jumpem (for transferring the old HTML site to WordPress format)

Ashley Thibodeau and Tara Jones at Digital Design Solutions for finishing the conversion of the old WordPress site into two sections, one optimized for mobile media (thomasjacksonletters.org) and one for computers (thomasjacksonletters.com)

Rich & Chris at Anologix for completing the many unfinished digital components of this voluminous project.