Savannah Images Project
![Painting, "Vue du Port de Savannah" Painting, "Vue du Port de Savannah"](/sites/default/files/website_image/SavannahPics_Image.jpg)
This site, funded by the Georgia Humanities Council and the National Endowment for Humanities, is part of a project that involves teachers and students in historical study by investigating local history and helps them develop technology skills by conducting historical research. The site features more than 300 images of places and events in Savannah and coastal Georgia divided into 17 subjects, such as "First Baptist Church of Savannah", "Fortresses of Savannah," and "James Oglethorpe and the Native Americans". Each topic offers a 750-2500 word essay written by Armstrong Atlantic State University students and professors. Because the authors' levels of expertise vary, the essays are of uneven quality and length. Some essays have links to specific images and bibliographies of suggested scholarly readings. Images offer brief (10-20 word) descriptive captions. This site is ideal for those interested in the history of Savannah and coastal Georgia, and it would also be a useful model for similar local history projects at the high school and college level.
Mamie Smith and the Birth of the Blues Market
This brief NPR presentation describes the first recording of a blues song by an African American vocalist—"Crazy Blues," performed by Mamie Smith—and the importance of this step in the nationwide (and, eventually, global) growth of the African American music market.
Emile Berliner and the Birth of the Recording Industry
![Photo, "Portrait of Emile Berliner in later years" Photo, "Portrait of Emile Berliner in later years"](/sites/default/files/website_image/EmilBerlImage.jpg)
Presents 108 sound recordings produced in the mid- to late 1890s by pioneer recording manufacturer and inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929) as well as more than 400 additional items from the inventor's papers. Berliner, based in Washington, D.C., developed the microphone, the gramophone player, and the flat recording disc. The recordings on the site—each averaging about two minutes in length and available in Real Audio, MP3, and WAV formats—include Western music (band and orchestra, instrumentalists, popular music vocalists and vocal groups, classical and opera, and foreign language songs), spoken word selections (comedy, speeches, addresses), and a variety of ghost songs and dances of Native American peoples recorded by ethnologist James Mooney. Selections include Buffalo Bill Cody's "Sentiments on the Cuban Question," recorded in April 1898; John Philip Sousa's band; humorist Cal Stewart relating one of his popular "Uncle Josh" stories; and Victor Herbert's 22nd Regiment Band.
Most of the other items—articles, books, catalogs, clippings, correspondence, diaries, lectures, notes, pamphlets, patents, photographs, scrapbooks, and speeches—are from the 1870s to the early 1930s. Also includes a 23-title bibliography, links to eight related sites, a timeline, a family tree, and three informative essays (2,000-4,000 words) on Berliner's life, the history of the gramophone, and the Library's collection of Berliner recordings. A valuable site for those studying the beginnings of the recording industry, turn-of-the-century popular culture, and the milieu of American inventors in the period from the 1870s to the Great Depression.
The Irving Fine Collection, Ca. 1914-1962
![Photo, "Irving Fine conducting, Tanglewood, 1962," Whitestone Photo, "Irving Fine conducting, Tanglewood, 1962," Whitestone](/sites/default/files/website_image/IrviFineImage.jpg)
This is a selection of some of the more than 4,300 items in the papers of conductor and composer Irving Fine (1900-1962). Material includes a 700-word biographical sketch and illustrated timeline of Fine's life. There are 57 photographs of Fine, including six with Aaron Copland, and six of Fine conducting at Tanglewood. Visitors may listen to the first and second movements of Fine's 1952 String Quartet, about eight minutes each, and may observe the composer at work by looking at five facsimiles of sketches for the score. These include a full 53-page score, a 43-page sketchbook, a 41-page pencil sketch, a 3-page draft of an incomplete and abandoned third movement, and a one-page row chart. A finding aid describes the rest of the collection, which includes personal and business correspondence, additional sketchbooks, press clippings, programs, and recordings. Visitors may search by keyword, browse photographs, or browse the five musical sketches. A bibliography lists seven articles by Fine, as well as two books, six articles, and seven dissertations about him. Useful for researchers interested in American classical music and cultural history.
Phillip Morris Advertising Archive
![Advertisement, "Proofing stock for four-color cover advertisements the longhorns come to Marlboro Country, new Marlboro 100's," 1967 Advertisement, "Proofing stock for four-color cover advertisements " 1967](/sites/default/files/website_image/PhilMorrImage.jpg)
More than 55,000 color images of tobacco advertisements from litigated cases, dating back to 1909, are now available on this site, created as a stipulation of the Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and various states' attorneys general. In addition, more than 26 million pages of documents concerning "research, manufacturing, marketing, advertising and sales of cigarettes, among other topics" are provided in linked sites to the four tobacco companies involved—Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Brown and Williamson—and to two industry organizations, the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research. Ads and documents can be accessed by date, brand name, title words, and persons mentioned, among other searchable fields. Images can be magnified and rotated. An important site for those studying the historical uses of advertising to promote smoking and those with a more general interest in some of the motifs in ad texts and images that have become part of 20th-century American life.
Oral History Digital Collection
![Image for Oral History Digital Collection Image for Oral History Digital Collection](/sites/default/files/website_image/14808.jpg)
These full-text first-person narratives present the voices of more than 2,000 people from northeast Ohio discussing issues significant to the state and the nation. These oral histories, collected since 1974, focus on a range of topics such as ethnic culture, including African American, Greek, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican, Romanian, and Russian, and industry, such as steel, pottery, brick, coal, and railroads.
Others discuss labor relations, including women in labor unions, wars (World War II, Vietnam, Gulf War), college life (including the shootings by National Guard troops at Kent State in 1970), the Holocaust, and religion. Subject access is available through more than 200 topics listed alphabetically.
Unified Vision: The Architecture and Design of the Prairie School
![Hallway, Temple Art Glass Company, Frank Lloyd Wright, c. 1915, Unified Vision Hallway, Temple Art Glass. . . , Frank Lloyd Wright, c. 1915, Unified. . . site](/sites/default/files/website_image/UnifiedVisionImage.jpg)
This beautifully designed site showcases the Prairie School architecture and design collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, demonstrating the work of architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis H. Sullivan, William Gray Purcell, George Grant Elmslie, and George Washington Maher. The site features photographs of 43 artifacts, 37 houses and other buildings, and 12 examples of architectural detail from the Prairie School; thirteen floor plans architectural drawings, and six suggested tours; and biographical information. Users can zoom in on many images and some feature a 360-degree view. These materials provide a good sense of visual architecture and design for time period from the 1884-1921. Limited to area around Minneapolis.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
![Image Image](/sites/default/files/website_image/AmericanSocialImage.jpg)
This site introduces the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML), an organization located at the City University of New York (CUNY) that "seeks to revitalize interest in history by challenging the traditional ways that people learn about the past," with a particular emphasis on labor history and social history. The site includes information about ASHP/CML books, documentary films, CD-ROMs, Internet projects, and educational programs, as well as five articles by staff members and numerous links to history resources.
"Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl: Immigrant Women in the Turn-of-the-Century City" presents selected photographs, illustrations, and accompanying short explanatory texts intended for use with a ASHP/CML documentary of the same name. Among the Project's current endeavors is "an intellectual and spatial exploration of P. T. Barnum's American Museum," entitled The Lost Museum, which burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1865. With the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, ASHP/CML produces History Matters.
Wallace Quarterman: Voices from the Days of Slavery: Stories, Songs and Memories
From the Library of Congress website:
"In this interview from 1935, Mr. Wallace Quarterman of St. Simons Island, Georgia, recalls the last days of slavery for Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Lomax, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle of the Library of Congress."