Monday, November 9, 2009

CanadianLetters.ca

A new website has recently come to my attention: it is CanadianLetters.ca. It contains copies of many letters written during the wars Canadians have fought.

Started by the History Department of Vancouver University and The University of Western Ontario, it's objective is to "let Canadians tell their own story in their own words and images by creating a permenent online archives which preserves Canada's wartime correspondence, photographs, and other personal material materials, from the battlefront and the home front".

Currently, they have letters from the Pre-1914 Era, First and Second World Wars, the Korea Collection, Post-Korea Collections, and an area called "Special Collections' which has interviews and newspapers like the Cobourg World, which published letters written home from the front in the First World War.

The project is ongoing, and as the website says, "It is continually seeking and adding new materials to the project site".

2 comments:

Vancouver realtor said...

What a great idea. I hope it catches on and they collect many more letters. So far the database is not that vast but we'll see how it grows in the following years. Thanks for the tip,

take care, Jay

Stephen Davies said...

The project is an ongoing project which relies on the support of Canadians across the country. It is already ten years old, but lacks publicity and financial support. Even so it is the largest online collection of its type in Canada, with over 10,000 letters digitized to date. The project is unique as it only borrows the materials for scanning and then it goes back to the family. Its growth will continue to depend on support of Canadians across the country. If you know of any materials that would be suitable, please contact the project.