Evergreen Aviation Museum [OR]

Description

The Evergreen Aviation Museum exists to present the history of air and space technology and to honor United States veterans. Collection highlights include a replica of Wilbur and Orville Wright's 1903 Flyer; the circa 1947 Hughes Flying Boat or "Spruce Goose," the largest aircraft ever constructed; and the Russian Photon space capsule, launched 1990. More than 50 aircraft are on display.

The museum offers exhibits, self-guided tours, guided tours, guided tours and activities for students, a summer camp, story times and crafts for kindergartners through third graders, a youth ground school, a youth overnight program, a junior docent program, Scout programs, radio-controlled flying seminars, archival access, two cafes, and boxed lunches. Reservations are required for group tours. Two weeks advance notice is required for groups of 20 or more wanting boxed lunches. Appointments are required for archival access. Wheelchairs are available for use on site. The website offers an education assistance grant application, relevant activities, and a teacher's guide.

Rosa Parks Museum [AL]

Description

The Rosa Parks Museum presents the history of the events of and the people involved in the 1955 and 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott. The museum is located at the site of Rosa Parks' refusal to give her seat on a Montgomery public bus to a Caucasian man. Following Parks' arrest, many African American residents boycotted the bus system as a protest against segregation. In 1956, the Supreme Court ruled segregation of buses unconstitutional. Collections include a replica of the aforementioned bus. The children's wing offers a sensory "time travel experience," which presents life under early Jim Crow laws.

The museum offers exhibits and a research center.

Modern and Contemporary American Poetry

Image
Photo, Jack Kerouac
Annotation

This site consists of hundreds of poems by major and minor figures--from Emily Dickinson to William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg to contemporary artists and writers--hundreds of links to poetry resources, and a "readings schedule" for a course in American poetry. Also offers materials as diverse as audio clips, newspaper articles, and television spots. Although the organization is haphazard, this is a rewarding and eclectic site packed with primary documents and leads for further work.

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1945-1972

Image
Logo, US Department of State
Annotation

Published annually by the State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States is the official record of major declassified U.S. foreign policy decisions and diplomatic activity, with material culled from Presidential libraries--including transcripts of tape recordings--and executive departments and agencies. Digitized material does not reflect the full range of published volumes. For the Truman Administration, the site provides "1945-50, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment." Three volumes are available for the Eisenhower years, on American republics, Guatemala, and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Cyprus. The Kennedy Administration is represented by 25 volumes that cover, among other areas, Vietnam, the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin crisis, and exchanges with Premier Khrushchev. A complete set of 34 volumes is available on the Johnson Administration, and 19 volumes currently are furnished from the Nixon Administration. Fifty-four volumes will eventually be available on the Nixon and Ford administrations. Useful volume summaries provide historical context. FRUS volumes for 1900-1918 (http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/) are described in a separate entry.

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History

Image
Logo, AMDOCS
Annotation

Provides links to approximately 390 documents, most of which are related to the nation's political, diplomatic, military, and legal history. Arranged chronologically, the site begins with excerpts of Christopher Columbus' journal of 1492 and ends, at present, with President George W. Bush's May 1, 2003 address announcing the end of major combat operations in Iraq [update: documents reach from around 800 to 2007]. Includes speeches, statutes, treaties, court decisions, memoirs, diaries, letters, published books, and even a few songs. The site, created by Lynn Nelson, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Kansas, is valuable especially for high school and college students who need easy access to many of the canonical documents in American history.

Historical Society of Topsail Island and Missiles and More Museum [NC]

Description

The Historical Society of Topsail Island operates the Missiles and More Museum. The Missiles and More Museum contains exhibits addressing Operation Bumblebee, Osprey aircraft, Camp Davis, natural history, Native American life, and pirates. Operation Bumblee was a circa 1946-1948 confidential guided missile testing program under the U.S. Navy, while Camp Davis served as an important air training center for World War II.

The society offers interactive and traditional exhibits, monthly lectures, and school and group museum tours. Reservations are required for lectures and museum tours.

Dirt on Their Skirts

Description

This electronic field trip looks at pioneering women baseball players, owners, umpires, and teams from as early as 1866, all the way up to present-day women playing and working in baseball. The common thread running through the stories examined is the efforts of women and girls to be a part of America's national pastime: baseball.

Many Americans are surprised to learn that women once played professional baseball in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), from 1943-1954. Founded by Chicago Cubs owner Phil Wrigley as a method to entertain Americans and keep ball parks full during World War II, the league provided an unprecedented opportunity for young women to play professional baseball; see the country; and aspire to careers beyond the traditional female roles of teacher, secretary, nurse, librarian, or housewife.

Department of Transportation: Digital Special Collections

Image
Logo, DoT Library
Annotation

This archival site makes available public papers and government investigative and research reports concerning the history of transportation in the U.S. It contains Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) and Department of Transportation railroad accident investigation reports from 1911 to 1994, with more than 4,000 reports, as well as aircraft accident reports from 1934 to 1965, with more than 790 reports. "Turner, Fairbank, and MacDonald" papers contains more than 540 public papers of Thomas H. MacDonald, H.S. Fairbank, and F.C. Turner of the Bureau of Public Roads and later the Federal Highway Administration. These include reports, speeches, development plans, and memoranda. Fairbank's papers cover the period 1920 to 1954, MacDonald's from 1919 to 1952, and Turner's from 1947 to 1971. Other documents include civil aeronautics manuals; Federal Aviation Administration research reports; historical Department of Transportation orders; U.S. Coast Guard navigation and inspection circulars from the 1960s to the present; and reports from the 1924, 1926, 1930, and 1934 National Conferences on Street and Highway Safety. Each collection of materials can be searched individually.

American Literature on the Web

Image
Image, "Ralph Waldo Emerson"
Annotation

Provides thousands of links to information on and texts by more than 300 American writers from 1620 to the present. Users can search in five chronological periods for links to timelines, author's sites, related resources, music and visual arts, and "social contexts." Also contains specific categories for electronic text collections, U.S. History, American Studies, poetry, movements and genres, Southern literature, women writers, literary theory, reference works, and "minority literature/multi-cultural resources," including categories for African-American, Asian-American, Jewish-American, and Latino/Latina writers. Authors represented include famous literary figures such as Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), Anna Bradstreet (ca. 1612-72), Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950), Emily Dickinson (1830-86), and Ralph Ellison (1914-94); important public figures, such as William Byrd (1674-1744) and Frederick Douglass (1818-95); and lesser-known figures, such as John Woolman (1720-72) and Amelia Edith Barr (1831-1919).

Offers images of many writers, links in Japanese, a section devoted to Canadian authors, a master list of authors in alphabetical order, and "two site-specific search engines" for word searches of this site and others. Last updated in December 2001, many links are no longer operable; however, as a gateway, it offers an abundance of usable links in a well-designed format for those needing resources on American writers and their times.