Sunday, December 9, 2007

Et alia

Here's something upbeat and useful for a change. (I know my tone's been skewing cantankerous lately). Turns out that if you subscribe to Harper's Magazine, you have access to its entire history -- 1850 to 2007 -- on the web. All you do is register, provide some kind of code from your latest copy's mailing label, and you're in.

Whatever your special area of interest, you'll find a wealth of material from any era of American history after Harper's was founded: writing by Mark Twain, Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, Gertrude Stein, William Faulkner, Sylvia Plath, and thousands of others. This stuff can be used for research or entertainment, and you can even download .pdf files of the articles and keep them in your hot little memory stick forever.

Right now I'm especially interested in the American labor movement, so I'm trolling through the early years of the 20th century looking for Big Bill Hayward et al.

Kill some time; feed your mind.

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