150K images of diaries, journals, notebooks, & rare documents from 17th & 18th centuries

Launched Monday, the website of the Colonial North American Project so far includes 150,000 images of diaries, journals, notebooks, and other rare documents from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Part of [Harvard] University’s endeavor to digitize all its collections and make them available free of charge, the Colonial North American Project is unique because of its scale. According to a 2011 survey, the material is scattered through 12 repositories — from Houghton Library to the Harvard University Archives to Loeb Music Library.

In elegant script, the documents provide a glimpse into the life of North American colonies through the eyes of real people who wrote about family affairs and daily life but also about slavery, Native Americans, education, science, and revolution.