This year marks the 100th anniversary of Alaska's purchase from Russia by the United States, and in taking note of this historic event, the editors of the Library Bulletin are publishing a speech written by Frederick W. Seward, the son of Secretary of State William H. Seward who negotiated the purchase.
Frederick Seward's Alaskan speech is included in the hundreds of thousands of manuscripts which comprise the William Henry Seward Papers housed in the University of Rochester Library.
Seward, as Secretary of State under President Andrew Johnson, negotiated the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million—2 cents an acre. He received little thanks from his generation; instead, was taunted about the purchase as "Seward's Folly."
Alaskans, all this year, will be commemorating the purchase which culminated in statehood on January 3, 1959. Congress has appropriated $4.6 million to be used on a matching basis for centennial projects. It also put up $600,000 for traveling Smithsonian Institution exhibits tracing Alaska's history from the sixteenth century. Alaska expects 200,000 visitors during this year-long celebration throughout their 586,400 square miles of land.
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