Review of the Soule Family CollectionThe collection I decided to research was the Soule Family Papers. In this collection, much of the context related to the railway for which George worked. A popular topic covered in many family newspapers was the weather. In George and Ada's writings, there was a lot of talk about the snow and cold when they lived in Grand Forks and Harvey. George was particularly vocal on the railroad that there would be enough snow accumulation for the trains to get stuck. Ada's writings focused primarily on everyday tasks such as housework, homework, and, again, how cold it was in North Dakota in February and the winter months. The Soule family collection captured picture-perfect North Dakota life in the late 1890s, harsh weather and financial hardship. North Dakota is a very hard working state and a comfortably ordinary place to live and that is what this collection captured best. The collection I researched was called the Soule Family Papers, and the author was Matthew Soule, who collected all of the family papers. The collection of Soule family papers is housed in the NDSU archives. Matthew Soule did an excellent job gathering important documents and records. The contents of this source consisted of numerous letters exchanged between Matthew Soule and the archivists, then some registers, including those of George and Amose. Then there were some handwritten letters from George Soule's daughters; Adah and Ruth. All of these documents are very important to the collection as a whole because they really paint a picture of real life at the time and the different points of view of the family members. The intended audience for Ada's diary...... middle of paper ......ate the collection, because for the most part it was pretty basic stuff that was found in diaries and great books. Then knowing that this was a real family and that they were struggling was eye-opening. North Dakota is a very hard working state, and it is comfortably ordinary, as I said above, this collection captured that very well. This family has done nothing that will forever go down in history and it will forever remain common knowledge. This was a joint family from North Dakota whose lifestyle most of us are familiar with. I would say that if most families had papers and diaries going back to when that family started, most would be very similar with slight differences. North Dakota is a very ordinary place to live, nothing exciting happens too often, but I would say people here now and then were very comfortable with that..