A collection of 18 essays and 90 photographs on the history of Old West Durham—one of the oldest neighborhoods within Durham, NC—which began as a traveler's rest stop prior to the city's establishment in the 1850s as a railroad town. Traces the neighborhood's numerous incarnations as a hangout for "the shiftless of society" in the mid-19th century to a factory town following the establishment of Erwin Mills in 1892 to the site for Duke University's west campus in the 1920s. A period of rapid decline occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by its present-day renaissance as a neighborhood community.

The site includes seven Works Progress Administration oral histories from 1938, ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 words each, of people living in the mill village; seven newspaper articles from 1913 about the growing "suburb"; a 3,400-word essay on the history of the cotton mill and mill village; a 4,000-word reminiscence of a child growing up in the neighborhood during the 1950s and 1960s; and a 550-word essay on "Preservation North Carolina," an organization interested in preserving industrial heritage sites. The Old West Durham Neighborhood Association was formed in 1995 with the credo "Diversity, Harmony, Community." A well-designed local history presentation useful to those studying urban history and labor history.

A collection of 30 biographical essays, ranging in length from 200 to 600 words, on African Americans, Cape Verdeans, and Hispanics of African descent who have accomplished significant achievements. Covers figures from Revolutionary America to the 1990s, though most of those included lived in the 19th century. All essays include portraits and links to relevant sites; 21 of the essays contain audio clips that allow visitors to hear the essays read. The selected subjects include war heroes, writers, statesmen, artists, activists, inventors, journalists, business people, and sports figures. Valuable for young users especially because of the audio files, but also may be useful to older students for the links provided.

History Link is an encyclopedia of the history of Seattle and King County, WA. A timeline of 180 "Milestones" connects visitors to 500-word historical essays on topics in Seattle-area history from before 1851 to 2000. "People's Histories" presents roughly 150 memoirs and oral histories (1000 to 16,000 words) of Seattle residents of diverse class and ethnic backgrounds, including Squamish and Nordic. There are 18 "Magic Lantern" photographic essays ranging from one image and 40 words to 50 images and 300 words. Special collections have been arranged in 17 folios, which cover topics such as Martin Luther King's 1961 visit to the city and the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in 1999. The WTO archive contains 19 articles of 100 to 2000 words on the history of radicalism in Seattle and the WTO protests of 1999 and 2000. This archive also contains 48 photographs of the protests taken by History Link staff.

Visitors may take four Cybertours of the city in which they click on sections of a map and connect to one or two images and 300-word descriptions of local history. "Then and Now" contains 49 before-and-after photographs of Seattle landmarks with 300-word essays on the history of each location. The site is easy to navigate and can be searched by subject. In March 2003, HistoryLink added a database for all of Washington state. It is an excellent resource for all levels of scholars interested in the history of the Northwest or oral history.

A collection of 10 essays on "the modern American city as a space of representation," using New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the years between the 1870s and 1930s as focal points for interdisciplinary explorations. The essays, originally presented at the 1999 conference "New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: Cultures and Representation," run from 3,000 to 12,000 words in length, include approximately 100 photographs and address topics such as the urban novel, Harlem sidewalk photographs, urban perception in the fiction of W. D. Howells, urban electronic history, how the physical redefinition of Chicago in the 1890s "presaged and enabled the virtual city of a century later," and how public art in New York and Los Angeles represented the cities and their inhabitants.

The 3Cities Project, based in the departments of American and Canadian Studies at the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham, has also produced the electronic book City Sites, which offers an additional 10 multimedia essays on New York and Chicago (see separate "History Matters" entry for a detailed description of this component site).

Highly theoretical and intellectually challenging, these sites will be valuable to those studying urban history, human geography, cultural representations, and societal consequences of the transformation to modernity in American cities.

This American Memory website traces the history of the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) from the 17th century to the early 20th century, through 138 volumes drawn from the Library of Congress General Collection and the Rare Books and Special Collection Division. Selected works include first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, and colonial archival documents that depict the region's land and resources, cross-cultural encounters, experiences of pioneers and missionaries, soldiers, immigrants, reformers, growth of communities, and development of local culture and society. Each work is available in full-text transcription or page image, and is accompanied by notes giving the title, author, publication information, and a 300–350 word summary of the contents.

The site also offers a 2,000-word essay on the history of the Upper Midwest that covers the discovery, exploration, settlement, and development of the region from pre-contact to the early 20th century; a regional map dated 1873; links to more than 40 related websites; and a bibliography of nine related works, three of which are ideal for younger readers. The site can be searched by keyword and browsed by author, subject, and title. For those interested in the history of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, this site offers some informative resources.

This American Memory site features more than 47,000 pieces of sheet music, drawn from the Music Division of the Library of Congress, registered for copyright from 1870 to 1885. The collection includes popular songs, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books, instructional materials, and band and orchestral music. Each featured work includes notes on the publisher, composer, publication, subjects, medium, and images of the music, from the cover through the score. Some selections also include transcripts of the lyrics.

Three special presentations feature selected portions of the collection. "A Decade of Music in America, 1870–79" offers a lengthy (5,000-word) essay on the most important themes, composers, musicians, and performers of that decade. It features more than 50 links to the works of key figures such as John Philip Sousa and Will S. Hays, and audio clips and lyrics of popular works like George Frederick Root's "Grandfather's Clock" and James M. Bland's "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny."

The presentation entitled In Performance—Choral Works from the Collection offers 12 audio files of music selected to represent the typical style of four-part writing for hymns and other choral pieces of that era. The audio files were recorded for the online collection in 1998 by the "Music for the Nation" Singers, a group of Library of Congress staff members. An image of the cover, a brief (150-word) description of the piece's theme and background, and information on the composer accompanies each of these selections.

Greatest Hits, 1870-1885: Variety Music Cavalcade is a listing of the most popular works for each year between 1870 and 1885, with information on the composer, date of composition and publication, and links to more information and audio clips when available. Annual lists, ranging from 5 to 12 entries, come from Julius Mattfield's "Variety Music Cavalcade" 1620–1969: A Chronology of Vocal and Instrumental Music Popular in the United States (1971).

The site also boasts an 18-work bibliography of scholarly works on music in this period. Though the time period covered in this online collection is rather narrow, the selection and variety of music represented is enormous; and the site provides an exhaustive introduction into the music of the period as well as a glimpse into the popular culture of the late 19th century.

Although he was not the first president to be filmed for motion pictures, Theodore Roosevelt was the first to have his life chronicled through extensive use of the then-new medium. This site, part of the Library of Congress American Memory Collection, offers 104 films depicting events in Roosevelt's life, from the Spanish-American War in 1898 to his death in 1919. The Theodore Roosevelt Association Collection provided 87 of the films and the remainder came from the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recording Sound Division.

The films include scenes of Roosevelt with world figures, politicians, monarchs, friends, and family members. The films are not accompanied by lengthy explanatory text; they include only a brief, 10–15 word caption describing their contents.

Special presentations on this site include: a film chronology offering a timeline with 150–200 word outlines of each period in Roosevelt's life covered in film; a text-based timeline from Roosevelt's birth in 1858 to his death in 1919; "T.R. on Film," a roughly 750-word scholarly essay; four sound recordings, with transcriptions, Roosevelt made for Edison company in 1912 in which he stated his progressive political views; and an image of "Theodore Roosevelt: The Picture Man," a 2,000-word article from a 1910 The Moving Picture World magazine.

See also the 250-word description of the collection, a 15-work selected bibliography on Theodore Roosevelt and motion pictures, and links to four related websites. A "Learn More About It" section includes 12 other Library of Congress special presentations and related collection sites for those who wish to learn more about Roosevelt and his times. This site is a good resource for learning about Theodore Roosevelt and the United States around the turn of the 20th century.

This Library of Congress American Memory site, a collaborative effort of the Library of Congress Hispanic Division and the National Digital Library Program, was created to help commemorate the centennial of the Spanish American War (1898). It traces the early history of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico through first-person accounts, political writings, and histories.

The selections consist of 39 Spanish-language political pamphlets, 13 monographs, and one journal that highlight topics such as land, natural resources, relations with Spain, political rivalries, and reform efforts. A brief (200–250 word) summary of the item and notes about the author, publication date and place, and repository information accompany each item. The Spanish-language pamphlets are not translated into English.

The online exhibit also features reminiscences of 12 soldiers who fought in the Spanish American War. A special presentation of downloadable cartographic items from the Library's Geography and Map Division includes two maps of the West Indies dating from 1806 and 1898; seven maps of Puerto Rico (1886–1915); maps of the cities of Bayamon, Mayaguez, and San Juan, Puerto Rico; and three Puerto Rican maps from the Spanish American War era.

The site also offers links to nine other American Memory sites on related topics and a bibliography lists more than 50 related works, approximately 20 of which are suitable for younger readers. This site will appeal to a small audience because of the number of untranslated Spanish documents; additionally, the selected documents only depict a narrow slice of Puerto Rican culture and society, primarily that of political, military, and foreign relations history. But for students interested in Puerto Rican history or the history of Spanish and American relations, this is a useful site.

This Library of Congress American Memory site features images and descriptions of 623 railroad maps selected from more than 3,000 regional, state, and county maps in the Library's Geography and Map Division. The selected items represent the variety of cartographic styles and techniques used in maps created for a range of purposes, including railroad surveys, U.S. General Land Office maps, surveys for rights of way, general surveys for railroad company reports, maps used by commercial publications, ticket agents and the public, and route guides to encourage commerce and travel by rail.

The maps on this site were featured in the cartobibliography Railroad Maps of the United States: A Selective Annotated Bibliography of Original 19th Century Maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, compiled by Andrew M. Modelski (1975). A descriptive summary of 50–100 words and notes on the scale, publication place and date, medium, call numbers, and repository accompany each image.

The site also includes a lengthy (3,000-word) essay outlining the history of railroads and maps, a bibliography of eight related works, and links to 15 American Memory sites containing related materials. The site can be searched by keyword and browsed by geographic location, subject, map creator, title, and railroad lines. This site is ideal for students and teachers interested in the history of railroads, cartography, and transportation in the United States.

This site, part of the Library of Congress American Memory project, features over 1,500 full-text images of 19th-century books digitized by the University of Michigan as part of the "Making of America" project. Books in the collection primarily date from 1850 to 1880 and cover such subjects as education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, science and technology, and poetry.

The collection is divided into seven general themes: Civil War, Slavery and Abolition, Religion, Education, Self-Help and Self-Improvement, Travel and Westward Expansion, and Poetry. Each section opens with a 200-word descriptive essay, and each book featured on the site is accompanied by notes on the author, full title of the work, date and place of publication, and the publisher.

The site is keyword searchable and can be browsed by subject, author, and title. The site is ideal for exploring late 19th-century literature and popular culture.