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August 2005, CHOICE


NORTH AMERICAN IMMIGRANT LETTERS, DIARIES, AND ORAL HISTORIES

This source includes 342 authors and consists of approximately 37,500 pages of information, most of it previously unpublished.  A formidable source for personal views of immigration to the U.S. and Canada , 1800-1950, it emphasizes the 1840s and the period 1890-1914.  Originally released in 2001 and updated since (ASP issued release 2 in November 2003), it includes a welcome and unabashed list of errata awaiting changes in the next renewal.  Produced in collaboration with the University of Chicago, it draws on the editorial talents of many leaders in immigration studies, among them Joel Wurl (University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center, whose Web site http://www.ihrc.umn.edu, is the only online rival to NAIL); Hasia Diner (NYU), and Donna Gabaccia (University of North Carolina—Charlotte).  Loading and maneuvering the database are virtually effortless.  Users are invited not only to email for technical support or to report factual errors but also to submit items for admission (for which they may be paid royalties).  Materials may be searched through multiple facets—author, source, year, place, nationality, personal events (childbirth, death of a relative, graduation, starting a job, marriage), and institutional subjects (labor unions, churches, schools, immigration societies).  Both beginning researchers and advanced scholars will benefit from this site’s collection of primary and secondary documents, which take various formats—e.g., immigration guidebooks, audio interviews, and anti-immigration cartoons from Puck, Harper’s Weekly and Judge’s Library.  For first-time users, the Help link gives a ten-minute guided tour through the site’s basic features and searching techniques earmarked to different levels.  

Summing up: Highly recommended. All collections. Reviewer: F. J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress

  © Copyright 2003 Alexander Street Press. All rights reserved.                 Last Updated: 12-Aug-2008