The American Memory Collection

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Ancestry Daily News

American Memory Project

 

Beyond the Index

The American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress

by Michael John Neill

 

Note: Readers who have difficulty with the links in their e-mail can go here for clickable links.

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Imagine reading a Sunday school book from 1845 or an immigrants' travel guide published in the 1820s. It can be done from the comfort of your own home using the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress. This week we take a brief look at some of the wonderful historical material hosted on this site.

 

Sometimes when we read history, it seems like the comments are being made about the present time instead of an era long since past. It is sometimes true that the more things change, the more they stay the same. In 1867 James Shaw wrote: "Too many have been the petitions for divorce during the last few years; too trivial have been the reasons given, and too frequent have the requests been granted."

 

It sounds like a comment from 1967 instead of 1867. It is important to remember that in some camps, the world has always been ending, morals are always decaying, and things were always better in the "old days." Still, reading materials from one hundred years ago can provide us with a new perspective on our ancestors.

 

Shaw's comment appears in his Twelve years in America: being observations on the country, the people, institutions and religion; with notices of slavery and the late war; and facts and incidents illustrative of ministerial life and labor in Illinois, with notes of travel through the United States and Canada. Whoa, that is a title. This book and hundreds of others are available to the public at no charge through the Library of Congress' American Memory Collection. One can spend hours if not days browsing the material on this site.

 

The Library of Congress American Memory Collection contains digital reproductions of a wide variety of print and audio media, ranging from pre-American Revolutionary works to reactions to the 9-11 attacks. Lessons on etiquette and farming can be found in addition to suggestions for the potential immigrant. This week we take a brief look at just a sampling of what is available on this site--you might not find your ancestors, but you are certain to find something to broaden your understanding of their life.

 

You will find this and a lot more at: http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/ar...rid=0%3a679%3a0

 

Happy hunting.

 

[Homesteader]

Thanks for the link.

 

One of the neatest things I have found doing genealogy is a diary written by one of my son's grgrgrgrgrandparent. It was an account of the family taking a covered wagon from St. Louis via the Oregon Trail to Oregon. They were in the first big wave of the western migration. It just comes alive when you read a first hand account.