Harlem History

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This website offers a collection of oral history interviews, images, videos, and scholarship on various aspects of the history of Harlem. It is divided into three main sections. "Arts and Culture" has six exhibits that include two video interviews focusing on Harlem's artists, writers, and musicians; oral history interviews with A. Phillip Randolph on the Harlem Renaissance and Dorothy Height on Harlem's theatrical scene; and a multimedia presentation on the Harlem Renaissance. "The Neighborhood" provides seven exhibits that include an oral-history interview with the first African American patrolman in New York City, an essay and video on the architecture and development of Harlem, an e-seminar about classic New York ethnic neighborhoods, an essay on the decline of Jewish Harlem, Bayard Rustin's reflections on different ethnic groups with economic interests in Harlem, and civil rights leader Dorothy Height's description of changes in Harlem and her attachment to the neighborhood. "Politics" offers four exhibits: oral history interviews with A. Phillip Randolph on Marcus Garvey's movement in Harlem and Bayard Rustin on Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a video lecture on Harlem politicians, and a video interview with David Dinkens on 1950s Harlem. The site also offers a short (eight images) photo essay entitled "The Streets of Harlem" and a multimedia presentation on the 1945 Negro Freedom Rally. This site offers a useful and varied collection of material for those researching or teaching Harlem or 20th-century African American history.

Historic Missouri Newspaper Project

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This website provides a searchable archive of 14 historic Missouri newspapers. The newspapers available are The Columbia Missourian (1929, 1966-1985), Palladium (April 1907), the The Missouri Republican (July 1865), the St. Louis Christian Advicate (1857-1858, 1860, 1866-1870, 1874-1879), the St. Louis Globe Democrat (1875), the Daily Evening Herald (1835), The Far West (1836), the Liberty Weekly Tribune (1846-1848, 1850-1883), The Liberty Banner (March 1844, one issue), The Phelps County New Era (1875-1880), The Rolla Express (1860-1863, 1865, 1868, 1872-1873), The Rolla New era (1880-1897), the M.S.U. Independent (1894-1905), and The Hannibal Courier (October 1935; January and August 1988).

For many of the newspapers only several months of the years indicated are available. The full text of all available newspaper issues is searchable, and a range of keyword search options are offered. The user can search an individual publication or all newspapers in the archive. All content can be searched or the user can limit the search to articles, pictures, or advertisements. Newspapers are displayed by page and a rollover feature highlights individual articles that can then be read in a separate window. This archive is a useful resource for those researching the history of Missouri in the mid-to-late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape 1922-1932

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This site offers five exhibits featuring designs by Frank Lloyd Wright's for projects that were never built—a prototypical suburb, two resorts, an automobile objective, and a desert retreat. "Although none was ever realized, they embody Wright's changing views of the fundamental relationship between building and land." Each exhibit is centered on an explanatory essay that ties together images of Wright's designs. The images include hypothetical study models based on Wright's designs and Wright's own preliminary sketches.

"A.M. Johnson Desert Compound" looks at a design Wright planned for the desert compound of Albert Mussey Johnson near Death Valley, CA. "Gordon Strong Automobile Objective" is focused on Wright's designs for a structure atop Sugar Loaf Mountain in Maryland to serve as a motor tourist destination and observation point. "Lake Tahoe Summer Colony" examines Wright's speculative designs for the Lake Tahoe Summer Colony at the head of Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe, featuring floating cabins. "Doheny Ranch Development" explores Wright's designs for a residential development "of unparalleled scale" on the 411-acre ranch property of Edward Doheny outside Beverly Hills, CA. "San Marcus in the Desert" focuses on Wright's designs for a luxurious resort in the desert on 1,400 acres south of Phoenix, AZ, commissioned by a successful developer. Some of the links on the site are no longer functional and there is no search. A website of interest to those researching Frank Lloyd Wright or the history of American architecture.

Wright on the Web

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This website offers "a virtual look at the works of Frank Lloyd Wright" through more than 170 images of the buildings he designed and short overviews of each period of his career. There are seven presentations: "The Early Years," "Prairie Style," "Non-Residential Works, 1900-1920," "The Twenties," "The Thirties," "The Forties," and "The Fifties." Each presentation includes a brief overview and images of the buildings he designed in that period. Most of the images are available through links to other websites. Additionally, the site includes a feature on 17 buildings by Wright that have been designated by the American Institute of Architects as examples of his architectural contribution to American culture. The site also offers links to more than 50 collections, directories, and miscellaneous resources on Wright and his architectural works. There is no search capability available, but the site is a good starting point for exploring the history of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture.

Travel, Tourism, and Urban Growth in Greater Miami: A Digital Archive

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This site uses essays, a detailed timeline, and an image gallery to examine the growth of Miami and the history of its travel and tourism industry. An essay by Project Director Bachin provides an introduction to the website. The site has seven main thematic sections: advertising, architecture, environment, land use, migration, tourism, and transportation. Each section is introduced by a short three-to-five page essay and features a chronology and an annotated bibliography. There is also a searchable image gallery with more than 590 subjects, many with multiple images. The visitor can browse the gallery by subject, location, resource (such as aerial views, photographs, or postcards), or collection.

The site also offers an overall chronology (1823-2000), divided into sections for 1800s to WWI, WWI to 1930s, WWII to the 1950s, and the 1960s to the 1990s. The chronology can also be viewed by 18 themes such as civil rights, the Great Depression, hurricanes, land use, migration, and tourism. The overall annotated bibliography lists more than 90 books, links to 16 related websites, and 14 related archives. This site offers outstanding resources for those teaching or researching the history of Miami and South Florida and should also be of interest to anyone working on 20th-century urban and business history.

Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage

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The cultural heritage of Maryland is readily accessible here through thousands of digitized documents, maps, and images arranged into more than 40 collections and two exhibits. Baltimore's native son and prominent early 20th-century journalist H.L. Mencken is featured through a collection of 19 portraits, artifacts, and letters. Edgar Allen Poe, who lived in Baltimore late in his life, can be glimpsed through 18 portraits, drafts, and letters. Another collection offers digital copies of primary sources from the War of 1812, including an original draft of the "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Other collections include photographs of African American life, a selection of sports-related items, photographs and watercolor paintings of old houses and churches in Queen Anne's County, vintage photographs of Baltimore streets and street cars, and a series of photographs awaiting identification from collection users. Ample historical context, including library donation information, is provided for all collections. The website's blog will be useful for those interested in library sciences, preservation, and digital archiving.

The Adoption History Project

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In 1851, Massachusetts passed the first law recognizing adoption as a legal and social operation. Since then, adoption has had a rich history in the United States, documented at this website through close to 200 reports, writings, letters, adoption narratives, and other documents. Users unfamiliar with adoption history might begin by exploring the detailed timeline that traces adoption history from 1851 to 2000, when Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 eliminating the process of naturalization for international adoptions. Moving on to the Topics in Adoption History section, with in-depth explanations of orphan trains, proxy adoptions, infertility, child welfare, and eugenics, will help build historical context. The Document Archive and Adoption Science sections boast documents from the late 1800s to the present by notables such as Pearl Buck, adoptees searching for information on their biological parents, and court decisions on adoption throughout the 20th century.

The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti

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Felix Frankfurter's 18,000-word article about the prosecution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchists charged with murder and robbery in 1920 and put to death in 1927, is presented here. The piece reflects doubts entertained by many intellectuals about the highly controversial trial. Appearing in the March 1927 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, it provided background as well as a careful analysis of the legal questions involved. Frankfurter concluded that "every reasonable probability points away from Sacco and Vanzetti."

The site includes links to seven additional Atlantic Monthly articles: two on the trial—Katherine Anne Porter's "The Never-Ending Wrong" and "Vanzetti's Last Statement: A Record" by W. G. Thompson, the lawyer for the accused—and five dealing more broadly with the American criminal justice system. The site, while limited, is useful for studying radicalism, the red scare, and 1920s America.

Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

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The creation of the Center for Dewey Studies, this site is devoted to the work of philosopher and educator John Dewey (1859-1952). It includes the tables of contents for each of the 37 volumes of The Collected Works of John Dewey; a chronology of Dewey's life and work, updated on a continuing basis with new information derived from his correspondence and other sources; a short annotated reading list; an extensive, updated bibliography of titles about Dewey; and information on editorial projects currently underway. The site also includes a short audio clip of Dewey reading an essay and links to the Southern Illinois University_s Morris Library's Special Collections site, where seven Dewey-related collections are housed. The Center for Dewey Studies was established in 1961 and has since "become the international focal point for research on Dewey's life and work."

The African-American Mosaic

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Comprised of 15 essays, ranging from 700 to 1,800 words, and about 120 images, this exhibit is drawn from the black history and culture collections of the Library of Congress. The materials cover four areas: colonization, abolition, migrations, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA)--a New Deal program of the 1930s. Specific subjects include Liberia and the American Colonization Society; prominent abolitionists; Western migration, homesteading, and Chicago as the "promised land" for Southern blacks; and ex-slave narratives gathered by WPA writers. No primary texts are available here, but the essays are well-illustrated with historical photos and images.