Alexander Street: History

Twentieth Century Advice Literature is live

We are excited to announce the release of Twentieth Century Advice Literature: North American Guides on Race, Sex, Gender, and the Family  .  This new collection provides a window into American social history by bringing together the instructional, prescriptive, behavioral, and etiquette literature that defined the standards of personal conduct for millions of Americans.

When complete, the collection will contain 150,000 pages of fully-searchable handbooks, manuals, textbooks, etiquette guides, self-help books, instructional pamphlets, and how-to books that illustrate both how Americans actually behaved and how they felt they ought to behave.

Celebrate Decoration Day!

To many of us, Memorial Day means cookouts, swimming, and the beginning of summer.  Others take a moment of silence to remember the veterans who fought and died for our country.  But few of us may know the origins of the holiday.  Using Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online we learn that this day for remembering fallen soldiers was originally termed Decoration Day, and its inception wasn't without controversy.

Traverse Area District Library wins subscription to The American Civil War Research Database

Thank you to all libraries that entered our drawing for a free year of access to The American Civil War Research Database.  The winner of the free subscription is the Traverse Area District Library in Traverse City, Michigan.

Although our contest is over, you can still enjoy free access to our entire Civil War series, The American Civil War Online, through June 30th.  See our previous post for more details.

Images of the American Civil War goes live

We are excited to announce the beta release of the highly anticipated Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera.  This new online collection presents the dramatic imagery of nineteenth-century Americana as experienced from the social, political, and military perspectives.

Cheryl LaGuardia, author of the E-Views blog on LibraryJournal.com, notes the collection's robust search capabilities and says, "it's an important, fascinating collection of photos and ephemera." 

At completion, Images of the American Civil War will contain 75,000 images allowing researchers and students to see the moments that occurred as the nation stood divided. 

Access to Images of the American Civil War is open through June 30th as part of our extended Civil War open access period.  For more details visit http://www.alexanderstreet.com/resources/civilwar.access.htm.

Open Access to Civil War Collections

Due to the many trial requests and wonderful feedback we received in April, Alexander Street is once again opening access to The American Civil War Online, our comprehensive series of online Civil War collections.  Through June 30th you can enjoy free access to these popular online resources. No registration is required and you can begin exploring immediately.

Additionally, we will be launching the beta-version of Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters and Ephemera in the next few days.  As part of The American Civil War Online, this brand new collections will be included in our open access offer.

Start your research now by going to http://alexanderstreet.com/resources/civilwar.access.htm.

Important Blog Updates

We are in the process of updating and enhancing the Alexander Street Press blog sites.  We have taken steps to make our RSS feeds compatible with a wider range of readers and browsers.  If you currently subscribe to the History feed you may want to update your feed address.

The new feed address for this blog is http://feeds.feedburner.com/AlexanderStreetHistory.  Please add this to your preferred reader now, or use the icons in the left column to subscribe.

Additionally, we have created new headline animators for each blog site.  Feel free to grab this animator for use on your library website, blog site, or MySpace page.

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If you prefer to receive Alexander Street news and updates via email you can simply opt-in using the form  in the right column.

If you have any questions regarding the blogs or animators email us at marketing@alexanderstreet.com.  Thanks and enjoy.

The more things change, the more they also stay the same

When we think of life in previous centuries, it is easy to get caught up in the notion that life "back then" was nothing like modern life due to the differences in everything from technology to fashion. However, every once in a while the enormous generation gap is bridged with even the most innocuous information. For example, a passage from a diary by Anna Quincy Thaxter Cushing in Manuscript Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750-1950:

This morning, did my usual work, attended to Mary's lesson's, and at 1/2 past 11, went into town, to Dr. Tucker's. The last time I was in, I went to see him, and he appointed today for me to go and have some fillings done--quite to my relief, however, he found, on a more careful examination, that there was none to be done--so he only cleaned my teeth.

This might seem like one of the simple, day-to-day activities that any woman in 2008 might experience.....until one considers that Anna's diary was written in 1856. One hundred and fifty-two years ago, a woman's trip to the dentist was quite similar to a dentist visit one might have in today's modern world!

You will be able to read about this and many other life experiences that are still the same today as they were in the past, in our upcoming collection Manuscript Letters and Diaries from the American Antiquarian Society, 1750-1950.

Lakota withdraw from U.S.

We came across an interesting story about the Lakota and the rights of indigenous peoples on the USA Today blog site.  Is this just a publicity stunt, or is there something to this?

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/lakota-withdraw.html

The American Edition of Shakespeare

The image featured in the ad in the October issue of the Magazine of History is taken from the October 31, 1863 issue of Southern Illustrated News.  The cartoon originally appeared in the satirical British magazine Punch on August 15, 1863. Both of these publications appear in the Alexander Street Press/HarpWeek database Illustrated Civil War Newspapers and Magazines: Important and Rare Periodicals from Confederate, Union, Abolitionist, and British Presses. 

    The database contains 65,000 pages drawn from 49 periodicals, including 15 campaign newspapers, most of them illustrated—3,720 issues published from 1860 to 1865.  Originally printed in 16 different cities, many of the publications are now rare and hard to find, with an item sometimes extant only in a single archive.   Carefully sought out and compiled from 17 different museum, library, and private collections, including those of the American Antiquarian Society and the Chicago Historical Society, these resources are now available to modern scholars in electronic form for the first time here.

Check out the database for yourself with a 1-month free preview. 

Share your thoughts in the meaning/significance of this illustration by posting a comment. 

Huey P. Newton Remembered

August 22 was the 18th anniversary of the death of Huey P. Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party.

You can find many of his writings in Black Thought and Culture, including excerpts from his autobiography “Revolutionary Suicide” and a book of essays and interviews called “The Genius of Huey P. Newton.” See http://www.alexanderstreet4.com/cgi-bin/asp/bltc/getvolume.pl?S8184 You can also read issues of the Black Panther Party newspaper.