Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online allows today’s readers to feel and understand what it was like to be a person of any time, race, ethnicity, or gender, experiencing the past viscerally—through personal and private writings presented as searchable full-text documents, audio files, images, and online videos. The most comprehensive archive of social memory yet created, Letters and Diaries Online is the ideal starting point for historians, sociologists, genealogists, linguists, and psychologists who want to explore and analyze human experiences. The series includes the following:

North American Women’s Letters and Diaries is the largest electronic collection of women’s diaries and correspondence ever assembled. Spanning more than 300 years, it presents the personal experiences of hundreds of women. Complementing Alexander Street’s British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries, the database will be used for research in women’s studies, history, sociology, literature, genealogy, and other fields.

British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries spans more than 400 years of personal writings, bringing together the voices of women from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Extending back to the 1500s, the collection will show researchers the various shapes and formats of the diary as it evolved, including the travel diary,  the daily personal diary, letter diaries, and other forms.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories provides a unique and personal view of what it meant to immigrate to America and Canada. With more than 100,000 pages of personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories, the collection provides a rich source for scholars in a wide range of disciplines.

The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries knits together more than 400 sources of diaries, letters, and memoirs, to provide fast access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war. Users can see and compare, for the first time, the writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, seamen, and spies. The letters and diaries are by the famous and the unknown, giving both the Northern and the Southern perspectives, along with that of foreign observers.

Black Thought and Culture is a landmark electronic collection of approximately 100,000 pages of non-fiction writings by major American black leaders—teachers, artists, politicians, religious leaders, athletes, war veterans, entertainers, and other figures—covering 250 years of history. In addition to the most familiar works, Black Thought and Culture presents a great deal of previously inaccessible material, including letters, speeches, prefatory essays, political leaflets, interviews, periodicals, and trail transcripts.

Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society brings together 100,000 pages of the personal writings of women of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, displayed as high-quality images of the original manuscripts, extensively indexed and online for the first time. The letters and diaries reveal, in each woman’s own hand, the details of the authors’ daily lives, their activities and concerns, and their attitudes towards the people and world around them.

Oral History Online is a major initiative that will continue to grow, with new collections being added regularly. We aim to index all the important oral histories available either on the Web or hidden away in archives, in English, all around the world, linking subscribers to full text, audio, and video whenever available. The database also includes tens of thousands of pages of full text that are available nowhere else but through Alexander Street—including 40,000 pages of Ellis Island oral histories in electronic format for the first time, exclusive Black Panther Party narratives, and other unique and in-copyright content.

Free trials are available.

Pricing

MLNC members get a discount on subscription prices which are scaled to the library and based on FTE, population served and/or materials budget.

Please contact MLNC Support for a custom price quote.

Ordering

To order submit a completed order form to the MLNC office via fax: 314-394-1326; or, by mail: 13610 Barrett Office Dr., Suite 206, Ballwin, MO 63021.

A Customer License Agreement is required only if your institution needs the agreement for your own records. A sample license is available. If your library needs a license, please contact MLNC Support for a fully executed copy of the agreement.

Access

Access
Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online can be accessed at http://lado.alexanderstreet.com.  A subscription confirmation will be sent to your institution after your order is processed, and will include instructions for accessing the resource. 

Remote Access
Remote access to ASP databases is allowed. Contact Technical Support at the phone number or e-mail address listed below for more information.

IP Address Updates
Send IP address updates to Technical Support at the phone number or e-mail address listed below.

Support

MLNC Support
800-969-MLNC (6562)
314-394-1326 (fax)
support@mlnc.org

Technical Support

Alexander Street Press

1-800-889-5937

support@alexanderstreet.com