Data & Information Services Center: Online Data Archive

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Logo, Online Data Archive
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Provides 43 social science statistical data studies on a variety of topics. Created as a service to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the site includes 12 studies dealing with Wisconsin-related topics, 14 additional studies on American subjects, and 15 studies dealing with general or international matters. Subjects pertaining to American history include Slave Movement during the 18th and 19th Centuries; Irish immigrants in Boston in 1847 and 1848; Characteristics of Census Tracts in Nine U.S. Cities, 1940-1960; the growth, consumption habits, and finances of American families in the 1950s and 1960s; financial characteristics of consumers in the early 1960s; premarital sexuality in 1973; Dynamics of Idealism: Volunteers for Civil Rights, 1965-1982; urban racial disorders of the 1960s; class characteristics of U.S. Council of Foreign Relations members, 1922-1969; and the role of the American family in the transmission and maintenance of socioeconomic inequality. (See separate "History Matters" entries for above-listed hyperlinked sites.) Valuable for those studying American social history, especially in the Cold War period.

Communism in Washington State--History and Memory Project

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Woodcut, "Gag Rule," From "Voice of Action"
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A small but well-constructed site on the activities and influence of the Communist Party (CP) in Washington State, where the CP had more significance than in most other areas of the U.S. The site contains 21 video excerpts of oral history interviews with five current members who describe experiences from the late 1930s to the present. Topics include the role of the CP in 1930s labor organizing, relations with the Soviet Union, the Red Scare that began in 1947, and anti-racism activity in the 1960s. Additional subjects cover relations with the New Left, plans for revitalization, methods of recruitment, and growing up in a Communist family. The site also offers nine essays totaling 25,000 words, accompanied by more than 200 images, that provide a narrative history of the movement. Users will also find 30 woodcut illustrations from two radical 1930s journals and an annotated timeline. This will provide a good introduction to radical politics on a local level.

Directory of Corporate Archives in the United States and Canada

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Logo, The Society of American Archvists
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The sixth edition of this archive was published in the Spring of 2012. This edition includes companies that maintain their historical records themselves as well as companies that contract with historical consulting firms and the archives of professional associations. This site has three components: entries arranged alphabetically by the name of corporation (separated into 11 files) and non-hyperlinked geographical and archivist indexes. The archive entries include contact information, conditions of access, holdings, and a description; but only contact information is consistently available. This site is an excellent reference resource for business historians and researchers.

After the Unrest: 10 Years of Rebuilding Los Angeles Following the Trauma of 1992

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President of Solimar Research Group looks at the history of natural and man-made disasters in Los Angeles over the past 40 years, focusing particularly on recent unrest beginning in 1992. He considers efforts to revitalize and unify the city in the wake of these events and whether these efforts have been successful.

Reflections on 9/11 and Oklahoma City

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Professor Edward T. Linenthal discusses the similarities and differences in cultural reactions to the events of September 11, 2001, and the aftermath of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing of April 19, 1995. He explores the co-construction of narrative and memorial process in light of considerations for the World Trade Center and a memorial at the site.

Vietnam Remembered

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Professors Ngo Ving Long and Noam Chomsky detail the U.S.'s oppression and killing of civilians in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, arguing that the U.S. public today has not learned from the war and does not remember it clearly and objectively.

How Can Communities, Cities, and Regions Recover From Disaster?

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Professors Lawrence J. Vale, Thomas Kochan, and J. Phillip Thompson discuss issues related to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and the recovery of New Orleans. Vale looks at past urban disasters and how these cities have changed and recovered; Kochan contrasts Franklin D. Roosevelt's response to Pearl Harbor with Bush's to Katrina; and Thompson looks at racial tension in New Orleans, prior to and after the hurricane.

Folk Cultures and Digital Cultures

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Professors David Thorburn, Thomas Pettitt, Lewis Hyde, and S. Craig Watkins discuss the present-day phenomena of media editing and remixing. Following Thorburn's main lecture on current examples, Hyde presents Benjamin Franklin as an early "intellectual pirate," through his bringing export-forbidden printing technology from England; and Watkins discusses the oral history and exchange tradition in African American music, relating it to voice-sampling in modern rap and hip-hop.