This site, created by a graduate student at the University of Virginia, provides a useful introductory and historical overview for the persistent stereotype of "poor white trash," a subject not unknown but surely under-studied. An 8,000-word essay, divided into five sections—"media," "religion," "race," "lifestyle" and "work"—forms the core of the site, though readers will find a handful of illustrations and pictures in each section. "Media" is best developed and most interesting. There author Angel Price has written about "Lil'Abner" and other comic strips, television programs such as the "Dukes of Hazzard," and works of literature that have both fostered and refuted images of poor white men and women. A handful of primary documents are also presented here, including brief selections by 19th-century humorists Augustus Longstreet and Simon Suggs. Readers will find, too, the full text of historian Henry Nash Smith's classic book, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. The background text, which draws from 29 scholarly and popular sources, is uneven yet generally reliable, particularly useful for students unacquainted with the topic. The site is somewhat difficult to read, owing to a dark navigating bar at the bottom.

This sound archive, maintained by radio enthusiast Kim Scarborough, features acclaimed radio drama adaptations, broadcast between July and December 1938, from Mercury Theater. Mercury Theater on the Air, a New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman, is most famous for its "War of the Worlds" broadcast of October 30, 1938, when its fictional news account of an invasion from Mars caused a national panic. In December 1938, the program found a sponsor in Campbell Soup and was renamed the Campbell Playhouse. This collection includes all surviving Mercury Theater broadcasts, five episodes of Campbell Playhouse, and a seven-part radio series "Les Miserables" produced by Orson Welles and featuring Mercury Theater players. A brief history of the Mercury Theatre and complete show listings provide context for the broadcasts.

This site incorporates 679 excerpts from original sound recordings and more than 1200 photographs from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-1999). These materials document traditional uses of mountains in southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley as common land for hunting, gardening, mining, and timbering. It includes interviews on native forest species, traditional harvesting, storytelling, river baptisms, and other special occasions celebrated in the valley's commons. Forty brief (approximately 500-word) interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, and cultural contexts of community life in the valley; eight maps and more than 150 photographs illustrate these community activities. Captions (roughly 25-word) describe the more than 1200 images contained on the site, which is keyword searchable and browsable by subject, geographic location, photograph title, and audio title. This site would be of interest to those researching rural American life and folkways.

Yet another fine production from the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, this site was created to celebrate the centennial of composer Aaron Copland's birth. The site offers a selection of over 1000 items and 5000 images drawn from over 400,000 items in the Copland Collection of the Library's Music Division. Items in the online exhibit include music sketches, correspondence, writings, and photographs spanning 1899-1981, but primarily drawn from the 1920s to 1950s. In addition to these items the site also includes a roughly 3000-word essay on Copland's life and works with 12 photographs of Copland and a timeline of the artist's life and accomplishments from his birth in 1900 to his death in 1990. Leonard Bernstein's 1000-word article on Copland from the 1970 High Fidelity/Musical America issue and five 300-word tributes to Copland on his 75th birthday, published in the 1975 Schwann-1 Record and Tape Guide are also included. Visitors may search the site by keyword or browse alphabetical listings of musical sketches, writings, correspondence, photographs, titles, and works. This is a useful site for students and teachers interested in the history of American music and the lives of American composers.

More than 240 items dealing with African-American history from collections of the Library of Congress, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. The exhibition explores black America's quest for political, social, and economic equality from slavery through the mid-20th century. Organized into nine chronological periods covering the following topics: slavery; free blacks in the antebellum period; antislavery movements; the Civil War and African-American participation in the military; Reconstruction political struggles, black exodus from the South, and activism in the black church; the "Booker T. Washington era" of progress in the creation of educational and political institutions during a period of violent backlash; World War I and the postwar period, including the rise of the Harlem Renaissance; the Depression, New Deal, and World War II; and the Civil Rights era. Each section includes a 500-word overview and annotations of 100 words in length for each object displayed. In addition to documenting the struggle for freedom and civil rights, the exhibit includes celebratory material on contributions of artists, writers, performers, and sports figures. Valuable for students and teachers looking for a well-written and documented guide for exploring African-American history.

The ethnically diverse history of Tucson, Arizona is celebrated here in sections on the Hispanic, Native American, African American, Chinese, and Jewish heritage of the area. A 1000-word essay on the Hispanic history of Tucson is complemented by the four histories, from two to 100 pages, of local families. An exhibit of traditional arts in the Mexican American community includes photographs of houses, piñatas, and ten video clips of low-rider cars. Sources on Native Americans include 12 oral histories (300-600 words), about food and culture. The history of African Americans in the Tucson area from the 16th to the 19th century is recounted in an 1,800-word essay. A collection of 22 biographies (120-800 words) and summarized oral histories offer more personal details of African American life in Tucson. The collection of material about Chinese Americans in Tucson includes four biographies (600-1,200 words) and seven video clips of interviews with a Chinese American woman who grew up in Tucson in the 1940s. The journey made by one Jewish family from Russia in the 19th century to Tucson in the 20th is recounted in a 4,700-word illustrated essay. The site will be useful for research in ethnicity and the history of the west.

This is a collection of material about the history of Chinese-Americans in Tucson, Arizona. It is one of five sections in an exhibit about ethnic diversity in Tucson. The site includes four 600-1,200-word biographies of Chinese-Americans in Tucson. Chinese-American history in the Tucson area is discussed in three 600-word essays about the railroads, farming and small business, and the development of Chinatowns in Tucson. Highlighted text in each essay links to three to ten photos. There are seven video clips of interviews of 20 seconds to two and a half minutes with and about a Chinese-American woman who grew up in Tucson in the 1940s. A page of sources lists eight books and articles about Chinese settlement in the west. The site will be useful for research about Asian-Americans, the west, and ethnicity in general.

This site highlights Orville and Wilbur Wright's pioneering aviation work that led to the world's first powered, controlled, and sustained flight. The collection contains approximately 49,000 digital items, including correspondence, diaries and notebooks, scrapbooks, drawings, printed matter, and 300 glass-plate photographic negatives. The papers cover the years 1881-1952, although the years 1900-1940 are especially well represented. The diaries offer detailed records of the brothers' ideas, as well as their successes and failures; and photographs include the first flight, taken at Kitty Hawk in December 1903. The materials are particularly valuable because the brothers so carefully documented their work and ideas, and because they corresponded so often with members of their family.

The site includes a Wright Brothers timeline and a Wright family tree. This site would be of particular use to anyone interested in the Wright Brothers or the history of flight, but is also useful in examining the role of photography in history and invention.

This is essentially a digital tribute to the Gershwin brothers, George and Ira. The site explores their musical and lyrical legacies as one of the most famous songwriting duos in American history. The site features playable audio files of 58 of the Gershwins' best-known songs, performed by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, and Harry Connick, Jr. In the History section, visitors can view a timeline of the brother's lives, complete with photographs, or read detailed profiles (approximately 2,500 words) of both George and Ira, separately and together. An Anthology highlights 10 selected films and 10 shows, while References provides additional resources in print, music, and digital media.

A complement to the four-hour PBS television series, this site presents unseen footage of World War II, the first war recorded primarily on color film. It brings the wartime experience of Americans on the battlefield and home front vividly to life through original color film clips and photographs. The site is divided into four main areas, including Battlefield, Psychology of War, the Home Front, and Social Aspects. Each section allows visitors to navigate through the different subtopics, read excerpts from diaries and letters, view nearly 250 photographs available for the first time, and watch rare color film clips of the period.

"Battlefield" includes homage to Pearl Harbor as well as film footage of covert American operations. "Psychology of War" contains a section entitled "The Atomic Option" that presents a video montage of images of an atomic bomb dropping on Nagasaki, Japan. Within this section, there is also a video of a Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland. "Homefront" includes five subsections, including censorship and migration. "Social Aspects" includes African Americans, Asians, Women, and Anti-Semitism. The footage of German American youth in New Jersey in the 1940s marching with fascist flags is very compelling. Visitors will also find an interactive timeline, essays on rediscovering the film footage, and a teaching guide for educators Those interested in this unforgettable period of history will find this site instructive.