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Visual Noise

by Don Bourdon

April 4, 2014

A crossed letter or cross hatched letter, sometimes referred to as a crisscross letter, is a 19th century style of hand-written message where a page is filled and then turned and resumed with lines running at right angles. The purpose is to save paper, which could be scarce and to economize on postage. Not to be confused with a palimpsest.

Crossed letter written by Mary Susanna Moody to her mother, 18 February, 1859 from Victoria, Vancouver Island. BC Archives Moody family fonds, MS-0060 / file 1
Crossed letter written by Mary Susanna Moody to her mother, 18 February, 1859 from Victoria, Vancouver Island. BC Archives Moody family fonds, MS-0060 / file 1
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Don Bourdon
Don Bourdon
Contributor, Royal BC Museum
Curator of Images and Paintings, Don Bourdon is researching BC photographers and photographs of the wet-plate collodion era, a period that coincides with BC’s colonial era and waves of gold rush activity.

Contact Don Full profile More by this author

Categorized Archives, History

Published April 16, 2014

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Cite “Visual Noise”

Don Bourdon, “Visual Noise, ” Curious Quarterly Journal 001 (2014), accessed January 18, 2021. https://curious.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/the-crossed-letter/
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