What did Queen Elizabeth I, her spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, and MIT founder William Barton Rogers all have in common? They were letterlockers. They and many others throughout history used a number of techniques to fold and secure their correspondence shut without the use of a gummed envelope.

Come spend some time in the MIT Libraries Wunsch Conservation lab with Jana Dambrogio, the Thomas F. Peterson Jr. (1957) Conservator and letterlocker-in-residence to learn how they did it. Participants will lock shut several letterlocking formats using paper, paste, sealing wax, and signets.