This useful site offers properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places as teaching tools for history, social studies, geography, or civics classes. It contains more than 75 "classroom ready" lesson plans that include maps, primary source readings, photographs and other images, discussion questions, activities, and projects.

The lesson plans can be browsed by location, theme, and time period, and all are based on sites listed in the National Register. The lesson plans are also arranged by featured topics for popular classroom subjects like Native Americans, women, the Civil War, and maritime history. For example, there are lesson plans for teaching Civil War and civilian memory using the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, and a plan for teaching about maritime history using the Fort Hancock site along the New York coast.

The plans cover all time periods in American history, but the site is particularly strong from the Civil War through the Civil Rights movement. An author's packet shows teachers how to devise new lesson plans using National Park Service properties. A "Professional Development" section offers a list of upcoming workshops and presentations as well as a bibliography of more than 150 National Park Service and other publications on teaching history with historic sites. Though the lesson plans are geared toward middle school students, they are easily adaptable to high school or college survey courses. This site is ideal for teachers looking for creative ways to bring historic sites into the classroom.

Basic statistical data and explanatory material on the workings of the Electoral College, provided by the Federal office that coordinates its operations. Data includes electoral and popular vote totals for presidential elections since 1789; listings by state of electoral college members for 1992-2000; facsimiles of certificates of ascertainment and certificates of votes for the 2000 election; and a digest of current state laws and requirements. Also offers a 2,700-word procedural guide; relevant federal law provisions; a 1,600-word description of state responsibilities; and 10 links to additional National Archives sites of relevance. A quick and easy way to locate vote tallies and legal information regarding the institution of the Electoral College.

In April 2000, the Gerald R. Ford Library released approximately 40,000 pages of classified documents concerning the Vietnam War. Many are from National Security Advisors Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft and their staffs and deal with the decision to evacuate U.S. forces from Vietnam in April 1975. This site provides 15 samples of the newly declassified material, 27 additional documents related to the war already available, 17 photographs of Ford and his advisors during meetings, and finding aids for those planning to travel to the Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The sample documents include important memos, letters, and cables regarding corruption in South Vietnam; "ominous developments" by the North Vietnamese reported to Kissinger in March 1975; the evacuation decision and its execution; the seizure of the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez by a Cambodian gunboat crew in May 1975; the plight of Vietnamese refugees; "lessons of the war" imparted to Ford by Kissinger; and notes from Scowcroft to Ford on the then-ongoing reconstruction of Cambodian society by the Khmer Rouge. This site will be valuable for those teaching courses on the Vietnam War and its aftermath and the internal workings of the Ford Administration.

This collection of essays about the history of the U.S. Senate begins with a brief overview (900 words). More than 140 "historical minutes" (300 words) discuss interesting events in the Senate from 1789 to 1980. Events include the caning of Charles Sumner in 1856, the 1914 ban on smoking in the Senate chamber, and a 1935 Huey Long filibuster. The complete texts of 15 oral histories, of 40 to 700 pages, of retired senators and Senate staff members are available and 15 others may be ordered. The oral histories cover 1910 to 1984 and deal with a wide range of issues, including the desegregation of the staff, the McCarthy hearings, preparations to impeach Nixon, rhetorical rules of debate, and the impact of computers on the work of the senate. Staff members include pages, the Sergeant at Arms, aides, administrative assistants, and the first African-American Government Documents Clerk. A collection of 26 essays (500 to 3000 words) discuss Senate procedure, leadership, officers of the Senate, and general information, such as the development of the oath of office. Other essays include 2,400 words on the president pro-tempore and a 1,300 word essay on the 1959 committee, chaired by John F. Kennedy, that designated the five most outstanding senators in American history.

The site also includes a section of frequently asked questions about the Senate and links to a directory that provides a 150-word biography of every senator and vice president as well as many congress people and staff members. Statistics about majority and minority leaders and the practice of switching parties are also provided. The minutes of Senate Republican Conferences from 1911 to 1964 and Senate Democratic Conferences from 1903 to 1964 are available in their entirety. Visitors may also read the full texts of eight lectures given by statesmen, such as George Bush and Senator Robert C. Byrd as part of the Leaders Lectures series established in 1988 by Trent Lott. The site is easy to navigate and will be useful for research in the history of American political institutions.

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 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.

This site contains transcripts, audio recordings, and edited stories from interviews, conducted in the spring of 1998 by sophomores at South Kingstown High School, with 31 Rhode Islanders about their recollections of the year 1968. These narratives, including references to the Vietnam War, Civil Rights movement, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as personal memories, are a living history of one of the most tumultuous years in United States history. The project includes a glossary, timeline, and bibliography of reference, as well as notes from the project coordinators about oral history in the classroom.

This is the companion to the PBS series, Vietnam: A Television History. David McCullough introduces the site with a 600-word essay on the war and 30-word program notes for each of the 11 episodes. Transcripts for each episode, from the "Roots of a War" to "The End of the Tunnel" are available. "Who's Who" provides photographs and profiles (50-100 words) of 41 major figures. The site provides a timeline from 1945 to 1997 including events leading up to the war, the war itself, and its results, as well as links to 50-word descriptions of events. A 600-word essay illustrated with four photographs describes Vietnam's recovery from the war. Among the 12 personal reflections of the war (300 to 900 words) provided here, visitors may read the memories of a Vietnamese-born American poet, a U.S. marine, a soldier who guarded the Ho Chi Minh trail, and a Red Cross aid worker. There are nine photographs and 3,000 words on equipment from fighter planes to boots and food. One essay (500 words) describes the My Lai massacre and another essay (1,600 words) discusses the continuing issue of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. This site is easy to navigate and mixes the personal and global effectively, making it useful for research into the cultural history of war.