Social Media Share a History Lesson

A nearly 150-year-old letter became a hot topic of conversation online last week, and in the process, illustrated many of the aspects of social media that its users find so attractive.

The website Letters of Note received more than two million views of a missive written in 1865 by Jourdan Anderson, an emancipated slave living in Ohio. Anderson was answering his former owner, who had asked Anderson return to Tennessee and work on his farm. Anderson's prose was so creative and rich it attracted wide attention and considerable discussion in a digital space Anderson could never have imagined. For the week of January 30 to February 3, Anderson's 147-year-old letter was the third-most linked-to subject on blogs, according to the tracking of social media in The New Media Index by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. The discussion took several directions. Many people admired the letter for its poignancy and wit and shared it with friends. Others questioned the letter's authenticity. A handful of people took advantage of the breadth of information available online to try to verify the letter's genuineness. For others, the letter became the trigger for a complex discussion of race and slavery.