Publishing Company Offers Digital Historical Documents
Alexander Street Press, a humanities electronic publishing company, presents several historical literary collections online. North American Women's Letters and Diaries, Colonial-1950 is a large collection of women's diaries and 
correspondence, including more than 100,000 pages of published letters and diaries, plus 4,000 pages of previously unpublished manuscripts. The diaries provide a detailed record of what women wore, the conditions under which they worked, what they read, and how they amused themselves. Another memoir-type collection is The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries, which provides access to thousands of views on almost every aspect of the war. The writings of politicians, generals, slaves, landowners, seamen and wives are included.
Other electronic books are Exploration Narratives: Encounters with the New World, 1534-1924 and American Film Scripts Online, which is set for release in summer 2001. In Exploration, the New World is detailed in depth, and 73 volumes of the Jesuit Relations and 32 volumes of Early Western Travels are incorporated. The database includes more than 100,000 pages of diverse narratives, prints, paintings, maps and bibliographies from all regions of North America. American Film Scripts is a structured, indexed electronic archive of American films. It is a bibliographic and biographical database of directors and scriptwriters, and includes the full text of movies. Alexander Street Press, Alexandria, VA, (800) 889-5937, http://alexanderstreetpress.com.
This article originally appeared in the 03/01/2001 issue of THE Journal.