Colonial House

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Photo, The colonists encounter an older form of transportation
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A companion to the series Frontier House, this site documents the five months that 26 American volunteers spent in a Maine wilderness recreating life in 1628 New England. The site provides short biographies of all 26 participants, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show, and a series of short activities designed to highlight colonial American history. Teachers will find most useful the four lesson plans (for grades five to eight) that discuss the settling of America.

In addition, an online scavenger hunt allows students to learn about day-to-day colonial life (teachers may tape broadcasts and show them in class for 12 months after airing). The site also includes 14 video clips, 12 audio clips, and more than 90 photographs of the cast and village.

Visitors should not miss the Myth-Conceptions quiz, or the language tutorial, where they can test their knowledge of colonial America and compare 17th-century English to 20th-century English.

Visitors will not find document collections or historical maps; the site's primary value is in the anecdotes that reveal little bits of information about 17th-century life in New England.

Bethlehem Digital History Project

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Oil on canvas, Johannetta Ettwein, John Valentine Haidt, 1754
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This collection of materials addresses the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA, from its founding in 1741 to 1844, when the community first opened to non-Moravians. Most documents are available in three formats: facsimile of original in German type, transcription, and translation into English. All documents may be read in English.

A 650-word essay introduces visitors to Bethlehem history. The community kept a diary that visitors may read for the years 1742 to 1745. The Journal of the Commission of the Brethren of Bethlehem, from 1752 to 1760, allows further access to the inner workings of the community. The death register currently lists 400-word obituaries for five women and six men. Birth and marriage registers are to be added to the site.

Moravians of this era read memoirs (2,000–3,000 words) at the funerals of community members, sometimes incorporating autobiographical writing. Visitors may read 34 of these memoirs.

The records of the community also include four maps, a survey, and the ledgers of the town finances from 1747 to 1765. Inventories of four shops may also be examined.

Other material includes a 32-page 1876 historical sketch of the Bethlehem Seminary for Young Ladies, a 19-page scholarly essay on the Moravian approach to business, and a 1762 discussion of how to finance the Single Sisters' Choir. Visitors may search the site by subject. The site will be very interesting for research in colonial history and the history of religion in America.

Mapping History

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Map, European Possessions Bordering the US, 1783
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This collection of historical maps, includes maps of the United States divided into 38 topical sections covering pre-1500 through 2000. These units include a variety of materials—from a text introduction and review questions to interactive graphs and maps.

The collection also offers 18 modules on European, Latin American, and African history, ranging in time between Greek civilization and 2000.

Interactive maps and graphs require a shockwave plug-in to access. Useful as geographic aids for those studying U.S. explorations in North America, westward expansion, campaigns against Native Americans, and slavery, among other topics in U.S. and world history.

Words and Deeds in American History

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Logo, Words and Deeds in American History
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This site displays approximately 90 primary documents from the 15th century to the mid 20th century. Features eight subjects: the presidency; Congress, law, and politics; military affairs; diplomacy and foreign policy; arts and literature; science, medicine, exploration, and invention; African-American history and culture; and women's history. The collection emphasizes "prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution," including 23 presidents and figures such as Carter Woodson, Thurgood Marshall, pioneer physician Elizabeth Blackwell, Wilbur Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Each subject is accompanied by a useful 100- to 400-word background essay and a link to the document's host collection. Also includes a 2,000-word essay entitled "Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division." Although limited in size, this site provides an eclectic group of documents of national interest.

American Originals

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Photo, Original Copy of Emancipation Proclamation, NARA
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This exhibition presents 14 of the " most significant and compelling documents from the National Archives holdings." The site furnishes, in whole or part, facsimiles and in some cases transcriptions of the following documents: the July 2, 1776, resolution by the Continental Congress proclaiming independence from Great Britain; George Washington's first inaugural address; the Louisiana Purchase agreements; a casualty list of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment of African-American soldiers who fought in the Civil War; a police blotter that reports the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln; an 1868 treaty with the Sioux Indians; a U.S. Navy memorandum reporting the Titanic disaster of 1912; a court verdict concerning gangster Al Capone; Eleanor Roosevelt's 1939 resignation from the Daughters of the American Revolution in protest of the group's refusal to allow singer Marian Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall because of her race; President Franklin Roosevelt's speech to the Congress requesting a declaration of war against Japan; a draft press release announcing the United States's recognition of Israel in 1948, signed by President Harry S. Truman; speech cards used by Presidents John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Ronald Reagan in 1987 for their historic visits to Berlin; President Richard Nixon's 1969 diary entry relating to his telephone conversation with Apollo 11 astronauts; and Nixon's resignation letter of 1974. The materials are accompanied by brief descriptions of 100-200 words, photographs, audio files, and links to related National Archives documents. This site exhibits national relics well, but does not investigate their historical significance and meanings.

New Jersery History Partnership Project

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Portrait, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Huntington, NJ History Partnership Project
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This project was designed to teach U.S. history through New Jersey history. Currently, materials are organized under two themes. "American Revolution" contains 10 lectures and nine lesson plans, seven images of New Jersey historic sites such as Liberty Hall and Morven, 47 primary source documents on topics such as women, African Americans, the state constitution, the Quakers, and the Lenape, seven video clips on topics such as republican motherhood, the Great Awakening, and the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and an interactive exercise on the 1776-1777 campaign in New Jersey. Lesson plan topics include revolutionary heroes, African American quest for freedom, and the Battle of Trenton. A timeline integrating U.S. and state history events from 1734 to 1807 is also included.

A less extensive thematic section "Market Revolution" offers a lecture, a lesson plan, and a video clip on New Jersey's transportation revolution, seven primary source documents that include an 1839 map of New Jersey and a map of the Morris Canal, and a timeline. Links are provided to three partner institutions, eight history centers or organizations, and 30 New Jersey history centers, organizations, or historic sites. This website provides useful resources for those teaching the 18th- or early 19th-century history of New Jersey.

Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words

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Mezzotint, Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia, 1763, Edward Fisher, LoC
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This exhibition "indicates the depth and breadth of Franklin's public, professional, and scientific accomplishments," offering documents, letters, books, broadsides, and cartoons. Eight sections exploring periods or aspects of Franklin's life are focused around items from the Library's collections with accompanying explanatory text.

Topics include Franklin's role in events prior to the Revolution, his role in the Continental Congress, his role as a diplomat in Paris and in negotiating the Treaty of Paris, his role in the early republic as President of Pennsylvania and delegate to the Constitutional Convention, his life as a scientist and inventor, and his activities as a printer and writer. There are more than 60 documents and other items available in the exhibition. There is also a Benjamin Franklin chronology from 1706 to 1790, a bibliography with 11 books and seven books for young readers, and four links to related websites. A good starting point for researching Franklin's life or the political and diplomatic history of colonial America or the early United States.

Library of Congress: Webcasts

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Photo, introductory image, Library of Congress Webcasts
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This video archive assembles Library of Congress webcasts in one easily accessible location. The biography and history section offers 159 webcasts of talks by historians, writers, commentators, and political figures, including historians Joseph J. Ellis, John Hope Franklin, Jill Lepore, Lawrence W. Levine, David McCullough, and Robin Shields and writers and commentators David Brooks and Andrea Mitchell. The wide variety of subjects discussed include Vietnam, Iraq, Abraham Lincoln, early American printers and the Declaration of Independence, Pearl Harbor, the national character, early African American life, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The section on government has 67 webcasts by current and former government officials, such as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, George Shultz, and David Weinberger. Subjects include intellectual freedom, global democratic governance, and guardianship and the First Amendment. Moreover, the site offers 56 webcasts on culture and the performing arts and 305 webcasts on poetry and literature. There are also sections on religion, science and technology, and education. This website is a useful resource for information on historical subjects from the historians and authors who have written about them.

Historic Pittsburgh

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Photo, Charles Hart Spencer. . . , 1905, Spencer family, Historic Pittsburgh
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This site offers an extensive archive of material on the history and culture of Pittsburgh, including full-text published works, maps, images, and census records, as well as archival finding aids. The full-text collection, covering the colonial period through World War I, presents more than 500 books on Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania history, including manuscripts, reports, dictionaries, diaries, and periodicals. The collection can be browsed by author, genre, date published, or categories such as culture and society or people and personalities. It can also be searched by keyword or bibliographic information including author, title, and subject. The map collection offers visitors the ability to search and view 1,122 plates from 26 volumes of Hopkins Real Estate maps (1872 ñ 1939) and the 1914 Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County. The more than 8,000 images can be browse by time period (1860s to 1980s), location, collection, or through four thematic presentations focused on work, play, home life, and personalities.

Also available are searchable U.S. census schedules for Pittsburgh from 1850 to 1880 and for Allegheny City from 1850 to 1870 and archival finding aids to 700 archival collections. Additionally, there is a timeline of Pittsburgh history from 1750 to 2000 and two lesson plans for teachers based on the material in the site's collections, one on using census data and one on using the map collections. A useful resource with a variety of primary source material for anyone researching the social or cultural history of Pittsburgh.

Medicine in the Americas, 1619-1914

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Logo, Medicine in the Americas 1610-1914: a Digital Library
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This small "digital library" offers a collection of eight historical medical books related to the development of medicine in the U.S. PDF files of the original documents are accompanied by a transcription and a brief description. Additionally, most of the documents have a link to a "historical note" with a more detailed description of the document. The text of the documents is searchable. The eight medical works are Clara Barton's 1878 pamphlet on the Red Cross; Thomas N. Chase's 1903 Atlanta University conference report on the mortality of African Americans in cities; Benjamin Coleman's observations on smallpox inoculation, written during the 1721 Boston smallpox epidemic; an 1825 description by Robert Waln, Jr., of the Friends Asylum near Philadelphia, the first private hospital in the United States entirely dedicated to the treatment of mental illness; William T. G. Morton's 1847 work on producing anesthesia by the inhalation of sulphuric ether; L. Emmett Holt's 1894 book on the care and feeding of children; Benjamin Rush's 1808 pamphlet on medical care for U.S. Army soldiers; and the text of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act that led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.