The Great War Society

Image
Logo, The Great War Society
Annotation

The homepage for an organization that "encourages discussion, learning, scholarship and independent research on the events surrounding the First World War." Currently presents four exhibits: "The Doughboy Center: The American Expeditionary Forces"; "La Grande Guerra: The Italian Front, 1915-1918"; "France at War"; and "Legends and Traditions of the Great War." A fifth exhibit, "Russian Revolution and Civil War," is scheduled for summer 2002. The site furnishes information about the society's activities and events and contains issues from its journal, Relevance. Also includes a listing of more than 400 links to resources about the war. Although the site contains few primary materials, it should prove useful to those interested in military and social aspects of the war.

RaceSci: History of Race in Science

Image
Logo, History of Race in Science
Annotation

RaceSci is a site dedicated to supporting and expanding the discussion of race and science. The site provides five bibliographies of books and articles about race and science. The section on current scholarship has 1,000 entries, organized into 38 subjects. A bibliography of primary source material includes 91 books published between the 1850s and the 1990s. Visitors can currently view 14 syllabi for high school and college courses in social studies, history of science, rhetoric, and medicine. The site links to 13 recently published articles about race and science and to 49 sites about race, gender, health, science, and ethnicity. This site will be useful for teachers designing curricula about race and for researchers looking for secondary source material.

Campaign Atlases

Image
Image for Campaign Atlases
Annotation

These 400 20th-century color maps of military campaigns cover a broad range of conflicts, from American colonial wars to U.S. involvement in Somalia in 1992—1993. Most of the maps represent conflicts in which the U.S. played a role, such as the "Battle of Bunker Hill" or the "Allied Landing in Normandy," although the collection also includes maps of the Napoleonic Wars, the Chinese Civil War, the Falkland Islands War, and Arab-Israeli conflicts.

Maps are indexed by war and may be enlarged, but are not annotated. The site is easy to navigate, although large maps may be slow to download. A bibliography lists eight atlases, published between 1959 and 1987, from which many of the maps were taken. The site is particularly useful for studying cartography and military history.

EASE History: An Experience Acceleration Support Environment

Image
Photo, A boy reads a comic book, Dorothea Lange, 1942, Ease History
Annotation

This collection of video clips and photographs focuses on 20th-century historical events and political campaigns. "Historical Events" presents 470 items from 1900 to the present that the visitor can explore by decade or by 13 thematic topics that include presidential administrations, the environment, politics, war, the economy, and science/technology. "Campaign advertisements" offers 229 campaign ads from 1952 to 2004. The visitor can explore the items by year, candidate, party, and issue, or by thematic topics such as ad themes or positive/negative ads. "Core values" allows visitors to explore the values at the center of presidential political campaigns. All the clips can be displayed one, two, or four at a time.

The learning guide offers activity suggestions and provides more than 100 questions tied to the themes on the site. The site also offers "learning segments" on the Cold War and campaign ads. The search feature offers the ability to search all themes in the campaign ads, history events, and core values sections; select individual film clips from a full listing; conduct a keyword search; or select from 32 classroom topics such as communities, culture, war, the Great Depression, the New deal, and the Great Society.

Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement, 1848-1998

Image
Logo, Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement
Annotation

Furnishes secondary materials concerning women's rights efforts in the U.S. from 1848 to the present. Includes a 5,000-word history of the movement; a 7,000-word chronology of political activism; six curriculum ideas; a detailed list of activities for high school students, librarians, and teachers to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the movement; listings for 54 prominent women's history organizations, arranged alphabetically by state; basic information and/or links for 60 groups that treat contemporary women's issues; and descriptive listings for 18 "costumed history performers" who portray public figures in women's history. The site is sponsored by the National Women's History Project, "a nonprofit organization, founded in 1980, that is committed to providing education, promotional materials, and informational services to recognize and celebrate women's diverse lives and historic contributions to society."

California Labor History

Image
Image, Introductory graphic, California Labor History
Annotation

This interactive essay covers 300 years of labor history in California. Powered by Shockwave, the site features a map of California that depicts the locations of labor disputes from 1776 to 1992. Using the scrollbar at the top of the site, users can change the year displayed on the map. On the map itself, small dots indicate the location of a particular event important to California's labor history. Clicking on the dot reveals a chronological list of related "Labor Events." The bottom-left panel, titled "Bigger Picture," provides links to sections of a larger secondary source entitled "Contextual Information" on California labor history relevant to the year and location the user is viewing. 64 700-word essays are mainly excerpts from published books and articles.

Indiana's Storyteller: Connecting People to the Past

Image
Image, Brewett, Chief of the Miami, James Otto Lewis, 1827, Indiana's. . . site
Annotation

The Indiana Historical Society's main digital archive site contains more than 34,000 images, most of which are directly related to Indiana's past, grouped into almost 30 themed collections that include photographs, prints, sheet music, manuscripts, old court documents, letters, Indiana ephemera, and maps. Also collected here are images from the Jack Smith Lincoln Graphics Collection (containing photographs, lithographs, and engravings of Abraham Lincoln) and the Daniel Weinberg Lincoln Conspirators Collection (containing newspaper clippings, manuscripts, and other material pertaining to the Lincoln assassination). A sampler of the other collections: digitized images of the Indianapolis Recorder; manuscripts and images of James Whitcomb Riley; a collection of 900 postcards of scenes from Indiana from the first two decades of the 20th century; and fascinating panoramic photographs from the early part of the 20th century, showing church groups, picnics, army recruits, and conventioneers.

New York, NY, Ellis Island: Immigration: 1900-1920

Image
Photo, Ariel View of Ellis Island
Annotation

These 24 stereoscopic photographs of Ellis Island are produced for sale primarily to schools and libraries. Includes an "air" view of Ellis Island; boats unloading European immigrants; and American officials examining female immigrants. The photographs include captions, but no material accompanies them other than a 150-word introductory essay. The photographs are part of the Keystone-Mast Collection at the California Museum of Photography (UC Riverside), one of the world's largest holdings of historic stereographic negatives and prints. To access this collection, click on "Collections" and type "Ellis Island" into the search; or click here to access the archive directly.

Memories of the IWW by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Annotation

Transcription of 30-page address by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn in 1962 at Northern Illinois University discussing memories of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn talked about the Lawrence strike of 1912, Big Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, and the red scare of 1919. The words, music, and sheet music cover for Hill's song, "The Rebel Girl," are included in the transcription. The speech is illustrated with four photographs of Flynn, Haywood, and the Lawrence strike and followed by nine questions from the audience and Flynn's answers. Links throughout the text connect visitors to one to 15 pages of background information on names, events, and themes in Flynn's speech, but many do not work. A bibliography recommends four books and one movie about Flynn. The site will be interesting for anyone researching Flynn, labor or radicalism in the early 20th century, or the IWW.

Children's Books Online

Image
Illustration, Pinkie says good-bye, Margaret Clayton, From Bunny Brothers
Annotation

This website's library offers full versions of more than 700 classic children's books indexed by age/interest reading levels (pre-readers and very early readers, early readers, intermediate readers, advanced readers, and adult readers). Such classic tales as Jack and the Beanstalk, Mother Goose, Three Blind Mice, Tom Thumb, The Ugly Duckling, Peter Rabbit, Puss in Boots, The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Pinocchio are available on the site.

A number of the books are available in multiple languages. The site's Eye in the Ear section offers audio tracks accompanying select children's books. And its Super Index offers a full listing of the available stories, poems, rhymes, book chapters, and illustrations. For those researching children or children's literature, this site is a treasure trove.