A large private collection of American war letters is preparing to open to the public.

The collection is the result of the work of Andrew Carroll, an individual collector who became curious about wartime letters after suffering the loss of his own possessions in a fire.

Carroll assembled “collection of 90,000 wartime letters stretching from the Revolutionary War to modern-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that will be housed in a new Center for American War Letters opening this fall at Chapman University in Southern California,” according to the New York Times.

The New York Times reports on the collection. Chapman University hosts a program in War, Memory and Society, in which Carroll participates.

Northern Illinois University students in History 491 may be interested in this collection.