{"id":2673,"date":"2014-02-14T21:51:24","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T21:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/?p=3741"},"modified":"2014-02-14T21:51:24","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T21:51:24","slug":"a-valentines-day-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2014\/02\/14\/a-valentines-day-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Valentine\u2019s Day Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, February 14, 2014<br \/>\nSubmitted by Brenna Campbell<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-closedBlog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-closedBlog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter closedBlog\" width=\"211\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3780\" \/><\/a>As part of our normal digitization workflow, all rare materials being scanned are first assessed for condition problems by the Conservation Department. Last week, during an assessment of the McDill family papers, we ran across this mysterious folded letter.<\/p>\n<p>Written on both sides were numbered sets of rhyming couplets, which seemed to have a romantic tone. By carefully unfolding the paper, we revealed the full content of the letter; it was a proposal of marriage, complete with illustrations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-1Blog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-1Blog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter unfolding 1Blog\" width=\"210\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3783\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-2Blog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-2Blog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter unfolding 2Blog\" width=\"227\" height=\"198\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3784\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-3Blog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-unfolding-3Blog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter unfolding 3Blog\" width=\"214\" height=\"199\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3785\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-openBlog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-openBlog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter openBlog\" width=\"211\" height=\"198\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3781\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>While we had it open, we tried to reverse-engineer the letter, in order to make a model of our own.  Many of the folds were torn, which made it more difficult to identify the original structure.  With a little help from Google, we identified it as a \u201cVictorian Puzzle Purse,\u201d and learned that it was a popular way to fold a letter to that special someone.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-starBlog.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/preservation\/files\/2014\/02\/Letter-starBlog.jpg\" alt=\"Letter starBlog\" width=\"209\" height=\"212\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3782\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>If you would like to make a Victorian Puzzle Purse for your beloved, instructions can be found here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.origami-resource-center.com\/puzzle-purse-instructions.html\">http:\/\/www.origami-resource-center.com\/puzzle-purse-instructions.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, February 14, 2014 Submitted by Brenna Campbell As part of our normal digitization workflow, all rare materials being scanned are first assessed for condition problems by the Conservation Department. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}