Furnishes more than 19,000 survey reports, more than 6,200 photographs, and 103 annotated county and city maps that document the history of thousands of structures built in Virginia prior to the Civil War. Original research was gathered in the late 1930s by the Virginia Writers's Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and includes information compiled by field workers through onsite investigations—including interviews with residents—and by using court records and other local resources. Provides descriptions of architectural details, histories of buildings, lists of owners, and in many cases photographs and sketches. The project was "specifically charged with describing the vernacular architecture and history of everyday buildings built before 1860: homes, workplaces, churches, public buildings." Also includes materials on cemeteries, tombstones, antiques, historical events, personages, land grants, wills, deeds, diaries, and correspondence.

Provides a 5,600-word essay on the project's history. Users may search reports, maps, and photographs by keywords; includes specific instructions for genealogical research and for finding documents dealing with the Civil War and African American history. Site creators note that many of the structures documented by the project "no longer exist, and the VHI photographs may be the only extant visual records of them." A valuable resource for those studying the material culture of Virginia's past.

This site offers published books selected from the Library of Congress' general and rare book collections in an "attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century." Contains 139 books, a few by well-known figures, such as Edwin Booth, Frederick Douglass, and Thomas Jefferson, but most by little-known residents and visitors to the region. Includes memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, books of letters, journals, poems, addresses, reports, speeches, travel books, sermons, books of photographs, and promotional brochures. In addition to Washington, D.C., the cities of Baltimore, MD, and Richmond, VA, are featured.

A special presentation entitled "Pictures of People and Places from the Collection" consists of selected illustrations organized in three sections of 10 images each on Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. The site includes 10 works dealing with slavery—a number of which were written by former slaves—and approximately 10 works dealing with encounters between whites and Native Americans. Includes links to 22 related sites. A valuable collection for those studying ways that Washington, D.C., and neighboring regions have been described in print over several centuries.

This site was created to put books online that, because of age and condition, can no longer circulate but, because of content and importance, still should be made available to researchers. Currently the site contains seven historical texts, including John Nolen's Madison—A Model City, a text on city development; Fredrika Bremer's The Homes of the New World describing the author's impressions of the United States and Cuba during a mid-19th century visit; and Mrs. Asenath Nicholson's Annals of the Famine in Ireland, an eyewitness account of the potato famine. Each work is accompanied by a 100-150 word biography of the author, notes on the date and place of publication, and a list of other works by the author. The texts can be searched by keyword(s) and proximity searches. At the moment this site is somewhat limited in scope, but there are promises of future additions that would cover a wider variety of topics. Should a visitor have an interest in rare 19th-century texts, the Irish, urbanization, religion, or the lives of women, this site is a useful source.

ROHO preserves the history of the San Francisco Bay Area, CA, and the Western United States. It covers a wide range of topics, including politics and government, law and jurisprudence, arts and letters, business and labor, social and community history, University of California history, natural resources and the environment, and science and technology. ROHO has full-text transcripts of more than 270 interviews online (some with audio recordings). Offerings include the "Free Speech Movement Digital Archive," that documents the role of participants in the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, in the fall of 1964 as well as its origins and legacy; "Exploring Diversity and Access at the University of California," examining the experiences of African American faculty and senior staff at UC Berkeley with six interviews available and an additional 10 interviews planned; "Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front" project, exploring the wartime experiences of Bay Area residents, with 23 oral history interviews; and "Suffragists," featuring eight interviews with major figures in 20th-century suffragist history.

There are two searchable databases, divided chronologically from 1954-1979 and 1980-1997, of abstracts from the more than 1,250 interviews in the offline collection. The site also contains an essay on "Oral History Tips" and two "One-Minute Guides" to "Conducting an Oral History" and "Oral History Interviewing." A useful resource for researching the cultural or social history of California and the West in the 20th century.

This online archive of 170 photographs, selected from the National Archives and Records Administration collection, depicts the development of the American city from the early 19th century to the present. The photographs represent a wide range of urban subjects and original media; some images are photographic copies of paintings, engravings, and imprints, as well as photographs. The images are exceptional, and are grouped into six categories: Artists' Conceptions of 19th Century Cities; Skylines and Streets; City Life; Urban Transportation; The City in Turmoil; and 20th Century Art Reflecting Urban Themes. The finding aid offers a roughly 25-word caption for each item, including the photograph's title, medium, repository, artist, and date. Though the site is somewhat difficult to navigate, it is worth a visit for those interested in images depicting America's urban history.

This National Archives and Records Administration site features 196 photographs that document westward migration and the development of America's western frontier. These photographs were drawn from the records of federal bureaus and offices, such as the Bureau of Land Management, Indian Affairs, Weather, Fish and Wildlife Service, Corps of Engineers, and the Forest Service. Featured images, taken between 1861 and 1912, capture special events and everyday life on the frontier, from Native American peoples and villages, to military maneuvers, to laborers and businessmen at work. A 15-25 word caption, the name of the photographer, and date (if available) accompany each photograph. Listings are arranged by subject and chronologically under each subject. An index lists the photographs by state. For those exploring the history of the American West, this is an ideal resource for illustrations.

This online archive features images of photographs taken by women that represent the holdings of the Women in Photography Archives located in Arcata, CA. Most of the photographs in the collection are the work of women photographers who were active between 1850 and 1997 and had some connection with the American West, particularly California.

The archive contains 17 separate collections, arranged according to four main themes: Community, Identity, Spirituality, and Locality. Each of these categories features relevant essays composed by art historians, curators, and artists. As a whole, the site offers the works and biographies of approximately 180 artists and photographers.

For educators, the site also offers a comprehensive eight-week syllabus that covers the website's four main themes.

Although navigating the website can take some getting used to, it is worth the effort. The site is a valuable resource for often lesser-know perspectives on the American West.

Focusing on 19th-century American maritime history and westward expansion, this collection of more than 160 documents from the Mystic Seaport Museum and Library provides diverse materials to explore themes such as the California Gold Rush, whaling, maritime business, migration and immigration, women's role in the West, and interactions between European migrants and native inhabitants. This Ameritech Award-winning site includes more than 25 photographs, more than 20 letters, logbooks from ships, published travel narratives, paintings, maps, and nautical charts. Provides four essays published previously in a Mystic Seaport publication, including an 1866 newspaper essay assessing Honolulu as a whaling port by youthful journalist Mark Twain.

The site is searchable by subject, name, title, and keyword, and includes an annotated bibliography of hundreds of documents in the Seaport's collections, and of 65 secondary sources. Valuable for those studying the American West, maritime history, business history, and the history of coastal and island localities.

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.