Hispano Music and Culture from the Northern Rio Grande

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Logo, Hipano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande
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This online presentation of an ethnographic field collection from the Library of Congress American Memory Project documents the religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking people from rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. It features the audio recordings and transcriptions of over 100 songs that Juan Bautista Rael of Stanford University recorded during a 1940 research trip to the region. Recordings include alabados (hymns), folk dramas, wedding songs, and dance tunes. Descriptive information about the title, performers, genre, instrumentation, location and date of recording, and any other brief (10-25 words) notes about the music accompanies each tune. The collection also includes over 35 pieces of correspondence from Rael about his trip. The site offers a keyword search and is browsable by performers and titles. For persons interested in Spanish American culture, music, and folklife, this site is a good source.

Frontera Collection of Mexican American Music

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Image for Frontera Collection of Mexican American Music
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This collection of commercially produced Mexican American vernacular music is the largest of its kind, with more than 100,000 recordings. The music, originally published between 1905 and the 1990s, is primarily in Spanish. This website presents digitized versions of roughly 30,000 recordings. The music ranges widely in style and includes lyric songs, canciones, boleros, rancheras, sones, instrumental music, and the first recordings of norte and conjunto music, as well as politically motivated speeches and comedy skits.

A browseable list of subjects shows that love (unrequited love, adultery, regrets), war (Korean War, Mexican Revolution, World War I and II), and praise (of country, guitar, mother) are common themes in the collection. Unfortunately, the songs are available to the general public only in 50-second sound clips. Users interested in gaining full access to a select group of songs for research are encouraged to contact the website's administrators.

Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project

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Logo, National Indian Law Library (NILL)
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This website presents full-text versions of 500 codes, constitutions, treaties, land titles, and Supreme Court decisions relating to the more than 500 Native American tribes in the U.S. The bulk of the material lies in the "IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) Era Constitutions and Charters" section, which offers close to 300 documents. These are primarily corporate charters, constitutions, and bylaws from the 1930s and 1940s. The website also includes the 1936 Composite Indian Reorganization Act for Alaska and twentieth-century constitutions from selected tribes, such as the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

For material before the twentieth century, the "Treaties" section includes scans of the original Six Nations Treaty of 1794 and the Senekas Treaties of 1797 and 1823. In addition, a digitized version of Felix Cohen's 1941 Handbook of Federal Indian Law, and the Opinions of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior Relating to Indian Affairs 1917-1974 are both available.

National Museum of the American Indian: Beauty Surrounds Us

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Shawnee bandolier bag, c. 1830
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This exhibit features more than 65 objects from Native American cultures in North and South America. Beautifully displayed in 10 showcases, these objects address many aspects of American Indian life, such as identity, recreation, communication, dress, adornment, music, and dance. All images can be zoomed for detailed viewing and are accompanied by a brief description, information about Native cultures, and other facts. Some images are accompanied by related photographs. The "Containing Culture" case, for example, includes a Paviotso (Northern Paiute) carrying basket, c. 1900, make from willow shoots and leather and used by women to carry seed-foods or personal possessions on their backs. An accompanying undated photograph shows Kaibab Paiute women in Arizona using the baskets. Each case also includes a map locating the objects throughout the Americas, as well as an interactive activity that allows users to manipulate the objects onscreen—by placing instruments in "wind," "percussion," or "string" categories, for example.

Mission to Arizona, 1916–1940: Father Augustine Schwarz, O.F.M.

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Photo, Fr. Augustine on location with film Westerners
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This exhibition presents photographs taken by Father Augustine Schwarz (1887–1946) while he served as a Catholic missionary to American Indians in Arizona. The images, donated by the Schwartz family, depict missionary scenes and workers, church buildings, and other landmarks.

The site focuses on three American Indian groups—Pima, Papago, and Apache Indians—and serves as an accessible portal to Catholic missionary activities among those three groups. Many of the photographs are accompanied with brief descriptions and annotations by Father Schwarz. A brief biography of Father Schwarz is included.

Along with images of Whiteriver Apaches of northern Arizona taken by Father Schwarz's brother, Arnold Schwarz, the entire collection consists of 179 images.

Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains

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Image for Indian Peoples of the Northern Great Plains
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These 685 items represent 27 current and former American Indian tribes of the Northern Great Plains and cover a period from 1870 to 1954. Most of the materials are photographs with identifying text. The collection also includes stereographs, ledger drawings, and other sketches.

Users can view three unique collections. The Barstow Ledger Drawing Collection offers 66 Crow and Gros Ventre drawings from the late 19th century. A portfolio entitled Blackfeet Indian Tipis, Design and Legend includes 26 works and an introductory essay. Another collection offers treaties with the Assiniboine, Blackfeet, and North Piegan tribes from 1874 and 1875.

Searching is available by subject, date, location, name, tribe, collection, and artist or photographer. This valuable site documents folkways, material culture, and the history of American Indians from the Northern Great Plains region.

Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties

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Image, Indians Traveling, Seth Eastman, 1847, Indian Affairs.
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Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties is the digitized version of Indian Affairs, a highly regarded, seven-volume compendium of treaties, laws, and executive orders relating to U.S.-Indian affairs. Charles J. Kappler originally compiled the volume in 1904 and updated afterward through 1970.

Volume II presents treaties signed between 1778 and 1882. Volumes I and III-VII cover laws, executive and departmental orders, and important court decisions involving Native Americans from 1871 to 1970. Some volumes also provide tribal fund information. This version includes the editor's margin notations and detailed index entries, and allows searches across volumes. It provides a comprehensive resource for legal documents on U.S. relations with Native Americans.

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest

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northwest indians
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These 2,300 photographs and 7,700 pages of text focus on the lives of American Indians in the Northwest Coast and Plateau regions of the Pacific Northwest. Materials illustrate housing, clothing, crafts, transportation, education, employment, and other aspects of everyday life among American Indians in this region. Most of the photographs were taken before 1920.

Texts include more than 3,800 pages from the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior from 1851 through 1908; 89 Pacific Northwest Quarterly articles from 1906—1998; and 23 titles in the University of Washington Publications in Anthropology series. The site also offers 14 maps and 10 lengthy essays authored by anthropologists on specific tribal groups and cross-cultural topics.

Election Statistics

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Photo, Introductory graphic, Office of the Clerk
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Provides vote counts for nominees in all federal elections from 1920 to 2000. These counts were compiled from official sources in states and territories and published by the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The statistics for elections prior to 1992 are available as scanned images of published documents in PDF format; results from elections held in 1992 and after are offered in HTML in addition to PDF format. Valuable for those studying 20th-century U.S. political history.

History of Presidential Elections Site

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Logo, HistoryCentral.com, United States Presidential Elections
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Provides statistics on all U.S. presidential elections. For each election year, the site presents graphs showing popular and electoral votes, maps of states won by each candidate, vote count and voter turnout statistics, and a sketchy essay of approximately 100 words in length on campaign issues. Offers more extensive information on the 2000 election: official certified results; polling data by five organizations from August through October 2000; biographical statements of 300-600 words each on candidates George W. Bush,Al Gore, and Ralph Nader (the Bush bio, almost twice the length of the others, reads as if it was written by his campaign organization); a chronology of events following the election until Gore's concession; and the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, concurrence by Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissents by Justices Breyer, Souter, and Stevens, and oral arguments. Also includes an essay of 900 words on close and disputed elections, with links to "quick facts" about the candidates involved; an essay of 600 words about the reasons that the electoral college was created, with a link to Federalist Paper No. 68 by Alexander Hamilton, which offers a rationale for the institution; and a 15-minute multimedia history of the Supreme Court. MultiEducators of New Rochelle, NY produces multimedia software on historical subjects; graphs and texts in this site have been taken from their American History CD-Rom. A useful source for statistics on presidential elections, but marred by intrusive flashing ads.