Donald L. Miller, with Pauline Maier; Waldo E. Martin, Jr.; Virginia Scharff; Louis P. Masur; and Douglas Brinkley, discusses the social environment at the bicentennial of the United States, 1876. Using the 1876 World Exposition as a hub, the presentation examines issues including the situations of Native Americans, women, and African Americans following the Civil War; the emphasis on industrialism and progress; and the trend towards individualism and self-improvement.

From the Maine Humanities Council website:

"Thomas J. Brown is Associate Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Institute for Southern Studies. He is a Distinguished Lecturer with the Organization of American Historians. In this lecture, Brown examined the ways in which debates over regionalism, race relations and governmental power have influenced how America has remembered Abraham Lincoln, particularly in public monuments."

From the Maine Humanities Council website:

"Elizabeth D. Leonard is the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History at Colby College, where she has taught since 1992. Leonard is the author of three books on the Civil War era, and she is under contract to write the biography of Joseph Holt, Lincoln's judge advocate general. In this talk, she explores Holt's role in the manhunt that followed the assassination. She also delineates the arguments that took place between those who were determined to avenge Lincoln's death (and the war itself) and those who aimed to forgive the rebel South and forget the plight of the recently freed slaves."

Richard Miller reads from the writings of Charles Warren Stoddard and Robert Louis Stevenson, on their meeting with each other in San Francisco and their impressions of the city's Rincon Hill.

In this presentation by the Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, 10 clips tell the story of Florence Kahn (1866-1948), the fifth female congressperson.

In 45 short video clips, ranging in length from 53 seconds to over three minutes, scholars Jo-Ann Hart, Shala Haeri, Farzaneh Milani, Mariam Habibi, Joseph Cirincione, and Linda Miller look at Iranian history over the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing on events that led up to the 1979 Revolution, the Revolution and the Iran Hostage Crisis, and the effects of those events on Iran today. The clips examine how the U.S. was involved in all of these events. Intended to accompany the Choices Program's curriculum Iran Through the Looking Glass: History, Reform, and Revolution, these clips may still be used independently.

Registration is required, but free.

In 17 short video clips, ranging in length from 52 seconds to over two minutes, scholars Susan Allee, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, and David Kennedy look at how global response to genocide has developed over the past century and examine U.S. response to several genocides. Intended to accompany the Choices Program's curriculum Confronting Genocide: Never Again?, these clips may still be used independently.

Registration is required, but free.

From the Library of Congress Webcasts website:

"The Music Division of the Library of Congress and the American Musicological Society, in joint partnership, presented the third in a series of lectures highlighting musicological research conducted in the division's collections. Jeffrey Magee presented 'Now It Can Be Told: The Unknown Irving Berlin.'

After Jerome Kern famously pronounced that 'Irving Berlin is American music' in 1925, Berlin continued for several decades more to define many of America's most distinctive musical idioms, from Tin Pan Alley to Broadway to Hollywood. Berlin's death 20 years ago at the age of 101 accelerated an ever-expanding cottage industry of commentary, reflection and scholarship on a legendary figure.

In an effort to amplify patterns in Berlin's stage and screen career, the talk will aim to draw connections among unknown (or little-known) materials—including songs, scripts, 'plot treatments,' and other notable documents—and Berlin's better-known work."

Although the video may appear broken, please be aware that it loads slowly, and will eventually start.

Journalist Kirstin Downey talks about Frances Perkins, the subject of her book The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience. As secretary of labor during FDR's presidency, Perkins initiated social-welfare reforms in areas including unemployment, child labor, immigration, and work-week length.

Ben Click looks at the National Portrait Gallery's portrait of Mark Twain by John White Alexander and tells the stories of some of Mark Twain's portrait sittings.