Welcome to Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online
The most comprehensive archive of social memory yet created, Social and Cultural History: Letters and Diaries Online allows students, scholars, and online researchers to experience the past through thousands of private writings and personal narratives. The resource is a unique forum that brings together the voices of ordinary men and women from all walks of life with the personal accounts of well-known historical figures. In their own words, people from diverse ethnic and social groups bring vividly to life hundreds of years of history through their perspectives on life, love, faith, politics, business, and countless personal events.

The database currently includes 99,789 documents in 2,236 books and 432 websites.  Learn More »
FEATURED ITEMS
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Featured Search: US Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1965
Browse letters, diaries, and oral histories from both black and white participants in the early years of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.


Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive
Read through more than 200 interviews documenting the experience of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II.


Letter from Susan Hale to Caroline Weld, March 24, 1908
Read one woman’s description of a journey from Chicago to Mississippi almost exactly one hundred years ago.


Featured Search: World War I
Browse personal narratives of World War I experiences in the United States and abroad.