Letters, Kinship, and Social Mobility in Nigeria

In 2003, Olufemi Vaughan received from his ninety-five-year-old father, Abiodun, a trove of more than three thousand letters written by four generations of his family in Ibadan, Nigeria, between 1926 and 1994. Reading deeply in these letters, Vaughan realized he had a unique set of sources to illuminate everyday life.