Disability History Museum

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Image, "The Polio Chronicle," Bolte Gibson, 1932, Disability History Museum
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This ongoing project was designed to present materials on the historical experiences of those with disabilities. The website currently presents nearly 800 documents and more than 930 still images dating from the late 18th century to the present.

Subjects are organized according to categories of advocacy, types of disability, government, institutions, medicine, organizations, private life, public life, and personal names. Documents include articles, poems, pamphlets, speeches, letters, book excerpts, and editorials.

Of special interest are documents from the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation Archives, including the Polio Chronicle, a journal published by patients at Warm Springs, Georgia, from 1931 to 1934. Images include photographs, paintings, postcards, lithographs, children's book illustrations, and 19th-century family photographs, as well as postcard views of institutions, beggars, charity events, and types of wheelchairs.

Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

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Image, Hal-hal-tlos-tsot or "Lawyer," Gustav Sohon, 1855, Kate and Sue McBeth
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Presenting full-text letters and diaries, this website focuses on the lives and careers of Kate and Sue McBeth, missionaries and teachers among the Nez Perce Indians during the last quarter of the 19th century. Government documents and images pertaining to the tribe's history accompany these materials. Sue McBeth established a successful theological seminary for Nez Perce men, collected and organized a Nez Perce/English dictionary, and wrote journal articles. Kate McBeth provided literacy education for Nez Perce women, taught Euro-American domestic skills, and directed a Sabbath school and mission society.

Divided into five sections, materials include more than 150 letters, a diary, a journal, five treaties, more than 70 commission and agency reports and legislative actions, excerpts from a history of the Nez Perce, and 19 biographies. Six maps and approximately 100 images, including 13 illustrations depicting the 1855 Walla Walla Treaty negotiations, are also available.

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive

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Logo, Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
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More than 1,700 texts written by or to Thomas Jefferson are available on this website, including correspondence, books, addresses, and public papers. While most texts are presented in transcribed, word-searchable format, 18 appear as color images of original manuscripts.

The site also includes a biography of Jefferson written in 1834, eight years after his death. The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, published in 1900, organizes more than 9,000 quotes according to theme and other categories. A collection of 2,700 excerpts from Jefferson's writings present his political philosophy. A wealth of searchable bibliographic listings is provided, including two previously published volumes and thousands of additional bibliographic references.

Also available are a recent dissertation on the construction of the Jefferson-designed University of Virginia (UVA), listings from the Oxford English Dictionary that show Jefferson's influence on English-language usage, and four links to UVA exhibitions on Jefferson.

Diary, Correspondence, and Papers of Robert "King" Carter, 1701-1732

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Image, Robert Carter, Diary, Correspondence, and Papers of Robert..., 1701-1732
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A work-in-progress, this collection offers letters and diary entries by Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732), a wealthy landowner and leading public figure in Virginia. Educated in England, Carter inherited and acquired more than 300,000 acres in the Northern Neck Proprietary between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Carter, who owned nearly 1,000 slaves, served as a member of the Council of Virginia and as acting governor of the colony.

The site presently contains transcripts of all existing Robert Carter texts, including approximately 800 letters, written between 1701 and 1727, diary entries covering 1722–1726, and wills. Each document provides both modern and original spellings, and hyperlinked notes offering identifying information for more than 130 persons, places, and things. A 2,200-word biography of Carter, a 2,100-word essay on the Northern Neck Proprietary, and a bibliography of nearly 80 titles are also available.

Letters of Note

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Sketch from letter, 18 March 1888, Vincent van Gogh, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam
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Letters of Note is the blog of a freelance copywriter. It consists of a collection of correspondence from prior to the 1600s to present day, and updates with a new letter every weekday.

Before you take a look at the site, there are a few items to keep in mind. First, be aware that the site does contain letters with profanity and potentially offensive language. As a result, this would not be a resource you would want to send your students to, but it can still be of use for locating letters to present in the classroom. The second cautionary note is that the letters come from a wide variety of sources. Some are submitted by readers, while others come from sources as respected as presidential libraries and the Library of Congress. If you find a letter of interest, be sure to take the time to ascertain its validity. The letter source is listed in each entry.

To find letters which are pertinent to the classroom, the best thing to do is access the archives, which provide a number of ways to browse the blog contents—including a list of notable figures who wrote, were written to, or were written about in one or more of the letters on the site. Each name links to the related letters. For example, "Abraham Lincoln" links to a letter of condolences from Queen Victoria to Mary Todd Lincoln following Lincoln's assassination, a response which Lincoln wrote to students who requested that he totally abolish slavery, the famed observation that he should grow whiskers, and a summary of Lincoln's political position as written to one A.G. Hodges, Esq.

Digital Library of Georgia

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Postcard, 270 Peachtree Building, Historic Postcard Coll., Digital Library of Ga
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Bringing together a wealth of material from libraries, archives, and museums, this website examines the history and culture of the state of Georgia. Legal materials include more than 17,000 state government documents from 1994 to the present, updated daily, and a complete set of Acts and Resolutions from 1799 to 1995. "Southeastern Native American Documents" provides approximately 2,000 letters, legal documents, military orders, financial papers, and archaeological images from 1730–1842. Materials from the Civil War era include a soldier's diary and two collections of letters.

The site provides a collection of 80 full-text, word-searchable versions of books from the early 19th century to the 1920s and three historic newspapers. There are approximately 2,500 political cartoons from 1946-1982; Jimmy Carter's diaries; photographs of African Americans from Augusta during the late 19th century; and 1,500 architectural and landscape photographs from the 1940s to the 1980s.

George Washington Papers, 1741-1799

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Image, Genl. Lafayette's departure from..., 1840-1860, George Washington Papers
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This collection of approximately 152,000 documents written by or to George Washington is the largest set of original Washington documents in the world. It includes correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, journals, account books, military records, reports, and notes from 1741 through 1799. Although the site is searchable by keyword, many documents are available only as page images rather than as transcribed text and the handwriting can be difficult to read. Transcripts, however, do exist for all diary pages and for selected documents.

The site includes a timeline with links to relevant documents; essays on Washington's diaries, letterbooks, and career as a surveyor and mapmaker; and an essay entitled "Creating the American Nation."

Making Sense of Letters and Diaries

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In an attic or an online archive, coming across personal correspondence and diaries can open a tantalizing window into past lives. This guide offers an overview of letters and diaries as historical sources and how historians use them; tips on what questions to ask when reading these personal texts; an annotated bibliography; and a guide to finding and using letters and diaries online.