The North Star: A Journal of African-American Religious History

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Logo, North Star Journal
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The complete archives and current editions of a journal about African-American religious history from the 18th to the 20th centuries. The first issue was published online in the fall of 1997. Each issue includes one or two scholarly articles of 30 to 40 pages, two to four book reviews, and a 200- to 2000-word discussion of research resources. In addition, each issue provides a list of Internet resources for research in African-American Religious history. Articles address topics such as "church media and racial discourse" (Lawrence Little) and "rap, religion and the politics of a culture," (Charise Cheney). The site will be useful for research in African American history and the history of religion in America.

The History of Jim Crow

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Lithograph, African American man with chained parrot, 19th century
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This site for educators was produced as an online companion to The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, a four-part television series that tells the story of the African-American struggle for freedom during the era of segregation. The site consists of five sections, including television, history, geography, American literature, and teacher resources. "Television" provides teachers with guides to the four sections, from the end of the Civil War to the historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The history section contains six historical essays (each between 5,000 to 7,000 words), including the introductory essay "Terror to Triumph," and five themed essays focusing on creating, surviving, resisting, escaping, and transcending Jim Crow oppression from the late-19th-century to the Civil Rights movement. Additional shorter essays, most between 600 to 1,300 words, cover topics such as Jackie Robinson and the lynching of Emmett Till. "Geography" features ten interactive maps that give "a multi-layered look at the impact of Jim Crow on the social and political landscape of the nation." The map themes include African-American press, Jim Crow laws inside and outside the south, and most gripping of all, the riots and lynching map that portrays a representative selection of the thousands of recorded acts of violence that occurred across the United States from 1889 to 1918. The American literature section presents interdisciplinary lesson plans designed to illustrate the connection between Jim Crow and 20th-century American writing. This section also contains an American literature book list for middle school, high school, and college-level students, including units on Toni Morrison's Beloved and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

The final section, teacher resources, offers more than 25 lesson plans, an interactive encyclopedia, an image gallery with historical photographs, and first hand narratives from people who experienced life under Jim Crow. This well organized and wonderfully equipped site is an invaluable resource for history and literature educators.

Making History on the Web: Creating Online Materials for Teaching U.S. History

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Cartoon, Of McKinley, From Puck
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Designed around a sample American history survey course, this site offers 10 teaching units, each comprised of eight to 12 documents (texts and images), and introductory essays by various scholars. Additionally, some units provide manuscript sources from the University of Virginia's (UVA) archival collections.

The units, covering American history from the Revolution to the First World War, are uneven, and the teaching suggestions are sparse. Still, the materials here are useful as a general introduction. The site, which includes links to teaching and history resources, is a product of a 1996 summer seminar held at UVA.

Click "A Sample U.S. History Resource Course" to reach the available units.

Temperance and Prohibition

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Cartoon, from Temperance and Prohibition website
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Organized local and national campaigns to reduce the drinking of alcohol in the United States are documented in this site, along with efforts of those opposing Prohibition laws. Includes dozens of contemporary images, speeches, newspaper and journal articles, advertisements, reports, statistical charts, and accounts. Specific topics include the Woman's Crusade of 1873-74, the Anti-Saloon League, the Ohio Dry Campaign of 1918, the evolution of the brewing industry, and Prohibition in the 1920s. Also furnishes material by and about temperance advocate Frances Willard (1838-1898), an annotated list of six related links, and 500-word essays that guide users through the material. A useful collection of resources for those studying late 19th-century and early 20th-century reform battles.

Western Trails: An Online Journey

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Photo, Heliotherapy treatment at the Jewish Consumptive Relief. . ., U. Denver
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This archive of thousands of photographs, paintings, maps, and other primary documents on the history and culture of the trails of the American West brings together the "western trails" collections of the six libraries and institutions. The main features are exhibits and search function, but the site also offers some limited teaching resources. "Trails through Time Exhibits" features 10 exhibits on Native American, explorer, military, settlement, freight, cattle, railroad, tourism, health, and population trails. Each exhibit has a short essay, images, and links to related exhibitions and websites. "Western Trail Collections" allows the visitor to browse through 10 pre-selected categories or conduct a keyword search by creator, title, subject, or date.

The teaching section, "Trails for Teachers," offers one lesson plan for grades 1-6, two plans for grades 6-8, and two multi-grade level plans, all utilizing the collection's materials. Subjects include such diverse topics as ranch life and the early history of Jews in Colorado. A useful resource for researching the history and culture of the American West and for a basic introduction to the various movements in and across the West.

New Jersey Public Records and Archives

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Photo, "Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., aged 1 year," c. 1931
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For historians researching New Jersey, this site's main interest will be its "state archives." "Catalog" provides access to nearly 200 pre-established searches on the archive's manuscript series, genealogical holdings, business and corporate records, cultural resources, and maps. Topics include military conflicts, society and economics, transportation, public works agencies, and photographic collections, as well as state, county, municipal, and federal government records. The other major feature consists of eight image collections with themes that include New Jersey Civil War soldiers, Spanish-American War Infantry Officers, Spanish-American War Naval Officers, Gettysburg Monuments, and views of the Morris Canal. The archives site also includes a searchable index of New Jersey Supreme Court cases, a transcription of New Jersey's 1776 constitution, and a table summarizing the holdings of the state archives. This site is a useful aid for researching the history and culture of New Jersey.

The Making of Modern Michigan

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Photo, Man with war bond ticket. . . , 1943, The Making of Modern Michigan
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This archive affords access to the local history material and collections in more than 45 Michigan libraries, including photographs, family papers, oral histories, public reports, notices, and documents. More than 3,000 items are available, on a wide range of subjects that include architecture, automobiles, churches, cities and towns, commerce and business, factories and industry, families, farming, geography and landscapes, housing, schools, and sports and recreation. The time period of the material is primarily from the post-Civil War era to the early 20th century. The material can be browsed by subject or institution and a keyword search is also available. A useful site for researching the cultural history of Michigan and its localities.

A Summons To Comradeship: World War I and II Posters

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Poster, Howard Scott, 1943, A Summons to Comradeship
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Poster art shaped and reflected the nature of total war in the first half of the twentieth century, and remains a rich primary source for examining the political, military, social, and cultural history of World War I and World War II. This website provides a database of close to 6,000 of these posters. Posters from the U.S. constitute the bulk of the collection, followed by posters from Great Britain, and then France, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany.

Descriptions are keyword searchable, and there are also categories for browsing. Fifteen posters under "Civilian participation" represent one of the key components of "total war": full participation of citizens both at the front and at home. Posters can be used to examine the ways in which citizens on the "home front" were drawn into the war effort, as well as messages about gender and class. Other subjects include organizations, war-related social groups, and individual political leaders.

Historical New York Times Project: The Civil War Years, 1860-1866

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Designed to provide access to the New York Times for the Civil War years, this website includes reproductions of all pages from the years 1860–1866. For the war years, more than 80 significant articles are arranged chronologically by year. They are also arranged by topic, including battles, military, politics, relations among the States, and social issues. Articles deal with Lincoln's election, inauguration, and assassination; press censorship; abolition of slavery; formation of the Confederate States of America; and Sherman's March to the Sea, among other topics. Presently 23 articles are available that detail the war's aftermath with plans to add more for the year 1866 forward. In addition, users can select any page for any issue published during the decade. Additional material is available for the years 1900 to 1907. Full-text access to the newspaper's complete run is available through the subscription service ProQuest [ID].

Early Telephone Etiquette

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Teaser

Should you leave your hat on when you talk on the telephone?

quiz_instructions

The invention of the telephone modified social communication and called for new forms of etiquette. During the years 1916-1919, the Bell Company created newspaper ads to teach their customers how to adapt to the nature of the telephone conversation and how it was different from face-to-face dialogue. True or False: The following points of etiquette appeared in national ads run by the Bell Company:

Quiz Answer

1. You need not dress to receive visitors in order to talk on the telephone.
False.

2. Concentrate on the conversation. Speak directly into the telephone. Don't try to carry on a conversation with a cigar in your mouth, or slouching, or with your feet up on a desk.
True.

3. In starting a telephone conversation, say who you are.
True.

4. If the person you are calling on the telephone is far away, it is not necessary to speak louder than you would if you were calling someone nearby.
True.

5. The other person cannot see your facial expression or manner or hand gestures that might, in a normal conversation, soften or change the meaning of your words.
True.

6. Don't assume that everything you hear comes from the other person: crossed wires, weather conditions, and party lines may bring in other conversations or sounds.
True.

7. If you get a busy signal, it does not mean that the person you are trying to reach does not wish to speak to you, or that the operator is being rude or lazy.
True.

8. If you answer the phone and there is no one on the other end, the person calling may have hung up because of impatience, or may have realized that he or she was calling the wrong number.
True.

9. Don't become angry if someone calls you in error.
True.

10. Say "Good-bye" to indicate that your part of the conversation is finished.
True.

11. If the person you are talking to does not respond to what you have said, he or she may have been cut off inadvertently.
False.

For more information

telephone_bell.jpg The telephone was not invented in order to do what people eventually used it to do. It may seem obvious what a telephone is good for, but even its inventors—Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson—were not clear about it when they first demonstrated it. Nor were those who attended their demonstrations and gasped in astonishment at what they heard.

On February 18, 1877, Bell and Watson gave a lecture and exhibition in which they transmitted speeches and songs between Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. The following day, Watson gave an interview to a reporter for The New York Sun, and talked about the future of the telephone, as he and Bell saw it:

"I haven't the slightest doubt," Mr. Watson said to-day, "that in a few months things will be so that a man can make a lecture here in Boston and be heard by an audience in any part of the country."

"Do you expect that the telephone will entirely supersede the present system of telegraphing?" I asked.

"Yes, we expect it will, eventually. A company is now forming for the purpose of manufacturing and introducing the instrument. In time it can't fail to replace the old dot and line alphabet system entirely. We expect, at first, it will be used mostly on private lines and for city business. It will probably take the place of the present district telegraph companies and the like, as it will be especially convenient for that class of business."

"Won't the receiving operators have to learn shorthand?"

"Yes, I suppose they will. In our experiments we have generally paused after saying a sentence, so that the receiver had time to write out in long hand."

Mr. Watson remarked that the introduction of the telephone would probably have the effect of increasing the telegraph business to such an extent that it would hasten the time when the wires would have to laid under ground instead of being strung on poles. [1]

This still conceived of the telephone as a kind of telegraph that would allow operators simply to speak and to listen at either end of the line without resorting to Morse Code. The message would be dictated on one end and written down on the other, for delivery to its recipient.

But at least one Boston Globe reporter understood that the invention of the telephone would make every person his or her own communications center:

telephone_distancephone.jpg The lines might not be direct from point to point, but to and from ganglia in the form of central offices or stations, which have charge of the business, except where private parties see fit to maintain their own independent lines. Suppose this network to be established and in good working order. What a deal of running to and fro and of vexatious delay would be obviated! Smith in his office on State street, without moving from his chair, could say to Mrs. Smith at the Highlands, in his blandest tone of voice: "Going to New York tonight, my dear; have John take my carpet-bag to the Providence depot before 6 o'clock." Mrs. Smith's reply would be immediate and, of course, in a tone of cheerful acquiescence. Or Brown, in his store on Washington street, would ask a friend home to dinner, and communicate the fact to Mrs. Brown on the Back Bay, receiving at once a dutiful response which would be pleasant to the friend standing by and catching the sweet tones of her voice. Jones, in the midst of the distractions of his bills payable and bills receivable, would be interrupted for a moment by a familiar but far-away voice, informing him that his beloved wife was coming in town, shopping and would call at 2 o'clock for a little money, and then of course no pressing business elsewhere would keep him away from his counting-room at that hour. And equally, of course, his wife would receive a prompt and amiable answer, relieving her mind of all uncertainty. … The fancy will readily supply the thousand details of practical utility here suggested. State-rooms on steamboats, places in railway cars, room in a hotel, dinner from a restaurant, could be bespoken without the necessity of sending, and the satisfaction would be obtained which only a personal interview can secure. [2]

But if everyone was potentially connected with everyone else, neither the caller nor the called could know beforehand who was on the other end of the line. This was a novel kind of social encounter. What did one speak into the void in order to announce oneself?

Bell liked the word "Ahoy" for this. It was a nautical word used by one ship to raise the attention of another one on the open seas. That must have been what it felt like for the first telephone users, sailing out into the etheric unknown.

Thomas Edison, on the other hand, liked the word "Hello." It was a word—actually, it was more like "Halloo"—that had only been used until then to summon a ferry from the far bank of a river. "Hello" caught on, and then quickly migrated out into other social encounters, even when the greeter and the greeted met face to face and knew each other well. [3]

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