I plan to study the annotated nineteenth-century works of the Harold and Mary Jean Hanson Rare Book Collection, particularly Anglo-American literature containing letters or diary entries. My motivation will be to investigate what these personal items reflect about the perspectives of nineteenth-century readers, and how the socio-political context of this literature’s creation and consumption likely shaped its interpretation. Specifically, I would like to study how this annotated literature reflects the emerging American women’s rights movement and changing perceptions of gender roles.