Description: North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories contains more than 100,000 pages of personal narratives, including letters, diaries, pamphlets, autobiographies, and oral histories. Several thousand pages of Ellis Island Oral History interviews are also included, as are approximately 2,000 political cartoons. The materials begin around 1840 and extend to the present, focusing heavily on the period from 1920 to 1980. People from many countries are represented, including more recent waves of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. In selected cases, users can hear the actual audio voices of the immigrants or view images of their scrapbooks. The database contains descriptions of work in restaurants, meat packing plants, mines, railroads, and factories. And there are lengthy passages describing immigrant schooling, social life, domestic life, and community rituals. Users will also find vivid descriptions of life under the Czar and the various revolutionary governments in Russia; tales of famine and poverty in Ireland; accounts of anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe; stories of persecution and fascism; and detailed descriptions of life in rural communities and towns as well as in major cities such as London, Berlin, and Moscow. Descriptions of initial encounters with soda pop, chewing gum, and bananas appear alongside reflections on labor conditions, political groups, and attitudes of the authorities. The database thus provides a broad, detailed, and immediate record of the experience of immigration, supporting research in history, sociology, ethnic and diversity studies, women’s studies, labor studies, and literature.
Coverage: Various Dates
