U.S. Intelligence Policy Documentation Project

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Presents histories of two secretive U.S. intelligence organizations—the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Security Agency (NSA)—and documents the use of satellite imagery in U.S. intelligence operations. Material is organized into three electronic briefing books. The site includes 23 documents from 1961 to 1996 on the creation of the NRO—established in 1961 to coordinate U.S. reconnaissance efforts; 24 documents from 1950 to 2000 on the NSA, created to manage and control U.S. communications intelligence activities; and 14 satellite photographs with a 4,400-word essay on the history of U.S. satellite imagery from 1960 to 1999. The NSA briefing book offers President Truman's 1952 memo establishing the agency and additional documents concerning topics such as North Vietnam military strategy, India's atomic energy program, the global surveillance network known as Echelon, and concerns about possible infringement by the agency of privacy rights of U.S. citizens. Satellite photographs show sites in the Soviet Union, the Sudan, Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan.

Includes links to information on three microfiche sets of related documents and three books on the history of U.S. intelligence operations by the site's creator, Jeffrey T. Richelson. Valuable for those studying the effects of technological developments on the history of U.S. espionage activities and international relations during and after the Cold War.

Kiowa Drawings

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Presents more than 600 drawings by Kiowa Indians—a tribe originally from the Southern Plains—from the 19th and 20th centuries. While many are on traditional buffalo hide, more recent drawings are on paper. These drawings illustrate "tribal social and artistic traditions" as well as the history of contact and conflict. The first of five sections includes 45 drawings created by Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe warriors imprisoned in the 1870s. The largest section offers more than 400 images commissioned by anthropologist James Mooney in the late 19th century as illustrations for his field notes. Additional sections include the Silver Horn pictorial calendar, composed of images used to track time and illustrate stories, and Silver Horn Target Record Book, with images of "warfare, courting, personal dress, the Sun Dance, and stories of the mythical trickster figure, Saynday." The final section offers material by the "Kiowa Five," artists who studied at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1920s and helped establish contemporary Indian painting. Useful for those studying American Indian history, culture, life, and art.

Black Wings: African American Pioneer Aviators

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Approximately 75 items that tell the story of pioneering African American flyers, their contributions to the World War II effort, and racial discrimination they suffered. The site is arranged into four sections containing narratives of approximately 350 words each with hyperlinks leading to related images, mostly photographs. The exhibit also includes reproductions of posters, newspaper articles, insignias, advertisements, personal accounts, government documents, and letters. Searchable by keyword, decade, exhibit section, media, or name of plane. The reproduction quality of some of the items is poor; several newspaper articles are so blurred they are virtually unreadable.

Includes two lesson plans for grades 5-12, links to nine related sites, and an 11-title bibliography. The site will provide students with a brief introduction to an often neglected aspect of African American and aviation history.

The Joshua Lederberg Papers

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Provides nearly 12,300 documents pertaining to Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and microbiologist Joshua Lederberg (b. 1925), acclaimed for his work in molecular biology and the genetics of bacteria. Most of the material dates from 1945 to the present. Includes more than 10,300 pieces of correspondence, more than 550 articles, 19 lab notebooks, 228 newspaper columns, 48 speeches, 55 monographs, 28 essays, 32 official reports, 83 photographs, and 9 video clips. An exhibit orients visitors to Lederberg's important work in bacterial and cellular genetics, artificial intelligence and expert systems, exobiology ("the study of life outside the atmosphere"), emerging infectious disease and biological warfare (Lederberg was a critic of biological warfare research), and health and the future. The site is fully searchable. Valuable for those studying the history of science and social policy.

Physical Sciences Collection: Surveying and Geodesy

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Provides historical information and photographs pertaining to more than 300 surveying instruments used in America to delimit land and transport boundaries "since the first European colonists settled here some 400 years ago and turned the American landscape into property." Visitors may browse by 23 types of instruments—from alidades to zenith telescopes—and by 117 names of instrument makers. Informative texts on makers, types of instruments, and specific instruments run from one sentence to 300 words in length. Entries include bibliographic references. Of value for those studying the history of science and technology.

U.S. Army Signal Corps Photograph Collection

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Provides nearly 3,500 photographs taken at Hampton Roads Port of Embarkation in Newport News, VA, where more than 1.5 million people arrived and departed during 1942-1946. The photographs were shot for the Army's Transportation Corps by U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers. In addition to military personnel, photos present civilian employees, Red Cross workers, wounded persons, entertainers, and German and Italian prisoners of war. In addition to Hampton Roads, seven photos were taken in Baltimore; one was shot in Chicago. Bibliographic records describe the images with information on persons, location, and date.

A special group of 34 images with descriptive captions document "The Odyssey of an American Soldier" from his arrival at Hampton Roads to his debarkation near a combat zone. Users can search images by personal name, ship name, geographic location, and keywords used in bibliographic records. Valuable for those studying military history and life at this key transportation site.

RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope

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Senator Robert F. Kennedy's trip to South Africa in June 1966 to protest that country's system of apartheid and support efforts to combat it is amply documented on this site with texts, audio files, film clips, and photographs. The site provides texts of the five speeches delivered by Kennedy during the visit—for three of these, full audio files are provided. Also offers texts of 13 additional speeches—from South African students and political leaders, as well as American leaders—with six available in audio format. Background annotations of up to 100 words accompany all texts. A newspapers section on the press coverage of the visit provides nine articles from U.S. newspapers and 15 articles from South African newspapers. A magazines section provides seven articles about the visit, including a Look magazine article about the trip written by the senator; and a cartoon section highlights 12 political cartoons. The site also provides 13 related documents, and more sources can be found in the "Resources" section. These include the "Black Christ" painting that caused uproar in 1962, 11 posters of Nelson Mendela, 11 annotated political cartoons, two national anthems for comparison, and 19 recommended books and links to 19 relevant sites.

An overview essay of 3,500 words describes the "enormous impact" of Kennedy's visit and illuminates "the manner in which he subtly challenged and undermined some of the pillars of apartheid ideology and mythology." A study materials section is designed for use in high schools and colleges with questions for class discussion and a feedback questionnaire. Additionally, the site's audio and video streaming now works with Realplayer and Mediaplayer, and the video streaming also now works with with Quicktime. A valuable site for studying the history of race relations in South Africa and the United States.

Picturing Hemingway: A Writer in His Time

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A celebratory exhibit of approximately 35 images and accompanying short texts—each only approximately 100 words in length—on the life of Nobel prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). The exhibit begins with the writer's family and educational background in Oak Park, IL, then offers sections on his Paris, middle, and later years. Images include photographs and artists' renditions of Hemingway and a few literary contemporaries, and images of covers of some of his novels. Though commentary is slight in content and in insight into the man and his art, the images and accompanying quotations are well-chosen.

The Hartford Black History Project

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Provides two exhibits on black history in Hartford, CT. "A Struggle from the Start" charts stages in the life of the Hartford African-American community from 1638 to 1920. Structured in five chronological sections, each with three-to-four thematic subsections, a text of 21,000 words is punctuated with approximately 60 images of documents, photographs, illustrations, newspaper clippings, tables, paintings, and maps. This exhibit covers slavery, black codes, free blacks, Black governors in the early Republic period, black soldiers, the black bourgeoisie, the formation of the black community, black labor, black society, black churches, the "Talented Tenth" in Hartford, black painters Charles Ethan Porter and Holdridge Primus, black migration from the South, mass politics, and black community institutions. A second exhibit presents approximately 80 photographs from Hartford's African-American community covering the years 1870 to the 1970s. Valuable for those interested in studying African-American history from a community perspective.

Linus Pauling Research Notebooks

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Presents 7,680 scanned pages of 47 notebooks kept by American chemist Linus Pauling (1901-1994) from 1922 to 1994. Pauling won two Nobel Prizes—for Chemistry in 1954 and for Peace in 1962—due to his involvement in campaigns for nuclear disarmament. Each notebook contains a contents index. In addition, the site provides a detailed alphabetical subject index that includes personal names. Notebooks offer many reprints of articles published by Pauling. The site also directs users to 23 selected highlights—pages relevant to Pauling's most significant work and to some autobiographical entries. Includes "An Open Letter to President Bush," dated January 1991, in protest of the Gulf War. Valuable for those studying the history of American science in the 20th century.