Rare Map Collection

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A collection of more than 800 maps dating from 1544 to 1939 of mostly North American locations, with an emphasis on 19th-century Georgia. Organized into nine chronological and topical divisions—New World; Colonial America; Revolutionary America; Revolutionary Georgia; Union and Expansion; American Civil War; Frontier to New South; Savannah and the Coast; and Transportation.

Includes maps of battles, American Indian nations, railroads, and roads. Useful especially for those studying military history and the development of the South.

A Curriculum of United States Labor History for Teachers

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This curriculum addresses labor politics and economics from the colonial period to the present day. Conceived and written by James D. Brown, Jr, "in cooperation with teachers from the metro Chicago area and local union members," it is divided into 11 chronological sections, each comprised of several elements: a 100–200-word overview; an inventory of major themes, episodes, and concepts; and a feature entitled "Integrating Labor History into Effective Teaching of the Period." This last portion recommends questions and lessons for students, and, for several sections, provides primary source materials. Thus "The Growth of a New Nation" outlines a lesson that asks students to compare Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence with an 1829 essay by George H. Evans—a founder of New York's Working Man's Party—entitled "The Working Men's Declaration of Independence."

The 11 sections emphasize gains achieved by organized labor and invite teachers to "highlight the stark contrast between today's working environment and the relationship between workers and owners of the past." Includes a list of 44 "Significant People in America's Labor History"; a 16-title bibliography; a link to an international news desk providing daily stories dealing with labor groups and issues; and additional material on Illinois labor history.

Some sections of the curriculum are thinner than others. More curiously, the site does not furnish any primary documents from the 20th century, and generally relies more on lists of events and issues than the sort of narrative prose that can enliven the past.

Voice of the Shuttle: Web Page for Humanities Research

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This gateway website was created by English professor Alan Liu. It contains over 70 pages of links to humanities-related resources on the internet and provides a guide to online resources in 26 subject categories, including anthropology, legal studies, history, women and gender, and minority studies.

Each link is subdivided. For example, the Minority Studies link is divided into 11 subcategories, including African American, Chicano Latino Hispanic, and Native American history. The History category is subdivided into 19 sections, such as Family History, Military History, and national and regional categories like North America, with subheadings for Canada and United States. The United States history subheading contains over 500 links to primary documents from all periods of American history.

This site contains both primary and secondary resources, and there is a History Teaching Resources link that provides resources for teachers of World History, syllabi for women and gender-related courses, and a guide to using historical places as teaching tools. The site is easy to navigate and contains a keyword search engine.

Pluralism and Unity

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Presents a wide array of materials that explore "the struggle between these two visions" of pluralism and unity in early 20th-century American thought and life. Arranged into six major sections: The Idea of Pluralism; The Idea of Internationalism; Culture and Pluralism; Labor and Pluralism; Race and Pluralism; and Gender and Pluralism.

The site links to major sites on such topics as ethics, politics, culture, sociology, anthropology, religion, economics, imperialism, hegemony, world systems theory, the League of Nations, Jim Crow laws, eugenics, the Niagara Movement, NAACP, KKK, unions, strikes, modernism, the genteel tradition, localism, and ragtime.

Outlines the perspectives of important public figures including William James, Eugene Debs, Randolph Bourne, Daniel DeLeon, John Dewey, Jane Addams, Horace Kallen, Scott Nearing, Max Eastman, William Cowper Brann, Madison Grant, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Charles S. Peirce, Margaret Mead, Woodrow Wilson, John Reed, and Irving Berlin.

Although many of the site's direct links to texts by these figures are no longer operable, users can access sites containing important writings through the "Concepts" section of each of the six major parts. Also includes 12 audio components and dozens of photographs.

For its inclusion of links to many extremely useful sites from a variety of perspectives, this site will be valuable to those studying early 20th-century American ideas and debates and their resonance throughout later times.

Building an Archives

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A history of the Washington, DC building that houses the National Archives and Records Administration and information for educators and students to build their own archives. Includes a 1,000-word history of the Archives with more than 20 photographs and links to relevant documents.

The site also offers a description of the architecture and guidelines on "establishing and maintaining a school archives," including notes about technology, student involvement, and items to collect, as well as six titles for further reading.

Includes links to additional Archives sites on the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, and to other primary documents arranged according to a variety of teaching activities.

Provides a practical guide to collecting archival documentation as well as a reasoned rationale: "Developing a school archives provides a valuable service-learning opportunity for students and creates a lasting research tool and legacy from which future students and the archival community can benefit."

Augustana College Library, Digital Projects

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This website presents thirteen "Digital Projects" curated by librarians at Augustana College in Rock Island, IL.

The projects, most with a regional focus on Western Illinois, include: the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive, Civil War Diaries (two diaries kept by Union Army soldiers who served near Vicksburg, MS), Early Pioneer Biographies (transcripts of 15 interviews with early settlers of the region), Farm Life (roughly 75 images of farm implements, animals, personalities, and vehicles, including the John Deere homestead), Native Americans (50 images of and interviews with local Black Hawk Indians), Quad City Views (more than 100 photographs of parks, churches, and streets in Davenport and Bettendorf, IA, and Moline and Rock Island, IL from the early 20th century), Transportation (roughly 75 images of regional animals, cars, trucks, trains, busses, trolleys, and boats in the early to mid-20th century), Town and County in Miniature: Color Plate Books at Augustana, and Cardinal Pole's Mission to England.

The Digital Image Archive is the website's largest collection, containing more than 7,000 photographs, drawings, and paintings drawn from several local academic and public libraries. These images range in date from just after the Civil War through the 1950s, and include portraits of prominent local leaders and families, sports teams and social clubs, as well as images of architecture and natural landscapes.

Town and County in Miniature is an online exhibition providing an overview of the color plate book, an illustrative form especially popular in 19th-century Britain, and its dominant genres of topography and travel, caricature, and sport.

Cardinal Pole's Mission is an online exhibition centered on a manuscript containing the correspondence of Reginald Pole (1500–1558) during two diplomatic missions from the Pope, with content created by Augustana College history students.

The Digital Classroom

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A series of activities, primary documents, lesson plans, links, and worksheets designed to encourage "teachers of students at all levels to use archival documents in the classroom."

Includes tasks to help students understand how to use National Archives materials; 20 thematically-oriented teaching activities covering the period from the Constitutional Convention to Watergate; detailed information about National History Day, an annual educational program and competition; and 35 lessons and activities organized around constitutional issues ranging from well-known patent cases to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Many of the activities correlate to specific sections of the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Government. Also contains a handful of links and material about books, workshops, and summer institutes for teachers.

A well-organized introduction to the practice of historical research.

Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers and Artists of Color

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Descriptive information about the lives and works of 136 "women writers of color in North America" is provided in this site, designed primarily for high school and college classroom use. Offers introductory material, including images, bibliographies, quotations, biographical sketches, and critical views with regard to writers such as Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Evelyn Lau, Winona LaDuke, Terry McMillan, and Alice Walker.

While the site concentrates primarily on 20th-century figures, it also contains 10 entries on women from the 19th century, including Sarah Mapps Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.

The material is arranged into four indexes: name, birthplace, racial/ethnic background, and significant dates. Annotated links to 18 related resources are included.

The site relies on contributions from interested students and teachers, and promises to grow to more than 500 entries in the future.

WWW-Virtual Library, History Central Catalogue

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Created by an international group of volunteer institutions, this site offers a gateway with thousands of links to general history resources and seeks to provide "effective tools for practicing historians wishing to work online." Links are presented for the following categories: "Research: Methods and Materials"; "Eras and Epochs"; "Historical Topics"; and "By Countries and Regions."

Washington As It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959

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Presents approximately 14,350 photographs by Theodor Horydczak (1890-1971), most of which document the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area between the 1920s and 1950s. Subjects include the architecture and interiors of government, commercial, and residential buildings; views of streets and neighborhoods; images of work and leisure; and events such as the 1932 Bonus March and the 1933 World Series. Also includes a limited number of shots taken in other U.S. locations and in Canada and a background essay, "Discovering Theodor Horydczak's Washington." Provides visual documentation of official and everyday life in the nation's capital and its environs.