A comprehensive gateway to more than 3,000 links that provide historical maps and information about the history of cartography, with an emphasis on early maps. Searchable by an index with more than 400 alphabetically-arranged subject terms or by keyword. Includes sites offering listings for conferences, discussion lists, fellowships, map societies, journals, images of early maps, map collecting, web projects on early cartography, histories of maps, and articles on cartography. Now incorporated into the World Wide Web–Virtual Library and updated weekly. Extremely useful as a starting point for online cartographic resources.

Designed for history educators and students, this useful portal provides access to more than 700 of the best history resources online. Sites are organized into 10 categories—Prehistory, Ancient/Biblical, Medieval, U.S History, Early Modern European, 20th Century, World War II, Art History, General Resources, and Maps. Many of the five-star Pre-history, Ancient, and Medieval sites are hosted by Smithsonian Institution, PBS, and the Internet History Sourcebooks; and the Library of Congress is the creator of a wide-range of top-rated sites for U.S. history. The 20th-century and World War II sections are voluminous, the latter presenting 42 sites. There are three special categories: Lesson Plans/Activities, Multimedia, and Research. "Multimedia" includes 18 map sites, including the Rumsey collection with more than 8,000 maps. Instructors will find the section on "Teaching with Technology" especially informative. It offers articles and advice about integrating computers into lessons and links to dozens of useful resources on teaching with technology. Visitors can sign up to receive monthly email updates.

The title of this site is somewhat misleading, as the history and artistry of the guitar and guitarists is the primary focus for the eight collections of images and 15 exhibitions—some produced in conjunction with other cultural institutions—that the site's creators, a collector and music scholar, offer. "Dangerous Curves: Art of the Guitar," an online version of a recent Boston Museum of Fine Arts exhibition, presents more than 20 photographs of guitars from the Baroque era to modern times, including a number of celebrity instruments. This exhibition provides up to 200-word annotations on each image and a 4,000-word essay. "Bound for Glory: The Life and Times of Woody Guthrie," a complement to the traveling Smithsonian Institution show, offers a 3,100-word narrative of the folksinger's life and songwriting career, with 23 audio files of songs and interviews, 32 photographs, four pieces of sheet music, and six reviews and articles on the original exhibition. "The Private Life of Mark Twain" displays photos of the author's 1834 Martin guitar, an edited version of Twain's poem "Genius," a 350-word article, an audio file of a song about Twain performed by the Kingston Trio, and a nine-minute National Public Record audio segment on Twain's guitar. O

ther exhibition topics include music in films, Elvis Presley, Django Reinhardt, music during World War II, and "the guitar as a potent sex symbol." The eight collections of images present historic guitars from the ragtime era to 1930s singing cowboy movies. The site also includes approximately 70 previously published articles on related topics. Valuable for those studying music history and American popular culture of the 20th century.

Supplies links to 22 full-text works of American literature, 180 pieces of recorded music, and 14 motion pictures from the years 1890 through 1929. In addition to the literary texts, the site includes thousands of links to more than 100 literary figures from this period and listings in decade-by-decade timelines for significant other works (texts not provided). Music and songs accessible in RealPlayer format include performances by Scott Joplin, Eubie Blake, John Philip Sousa, Bert Williams, Nora Bayes, Enrico Caruso, John McCormack, Billy Murray, Joe Venuti, Helen Kane, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith, Al Jolson, and a youthful Bing Crosby. A 1908 talk on "Unlawful Trusts" by presidential candidate William H. Taft is also included. Most of the films provided were produced between 1897 and 1906. While this site is still under construction, it presently offers a good variety of sounds, sights, and texts from these four decades.

An experimental presentation of 450 items in the Smithsonian Institution's American History collections, many of which are not on public display. Visitors to this virtual tour will find a map divided into regions representing broad subject categories that contain smaller rectangles standing for individual objects. Moving a mouse to a particular square results in the appearance of the name of the object, a thumbnail image, a date projected onto a timeline, and lines emanating out to relevant subject areas. Users can then click to learn more, finding a 100-200 word description, an option to zoom in closer, and often links to further information in other Smithsonian sites. Also searchable by keyword and category. Objects selected by curators "include famous, unusual, and everyday items with interesting stories to tell. They are not intended to be representative of the Museum's entire collection."

Categories reflect the wide range of the Institution's holdings, including clothing, arts/entertainment, business, science/medicine, photography, home, print/communications, transportation, military, computers, and sports. Includes audio and video items. Users can submit ratings for each object that will affect the future relative size of each square. Although innovative in design, the site may be disappointing to those searching for in-depth information about American history and culture; this is history-lite, with bells and whistles given more prominence than context and meaning.

This website provides full-text access to 22 academic history journals, including major titles, such as the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History, and smaller journals, such as the Journal of Social History, the Western Historical Quarterly, and the Journal of World History. Available journals include current issues and coverage from the recent past, going back as far as 1999, in PDF and HTML format. The website offers keyword and Boolean searching as well as advanced searching by type of article. There are four additional resources, including conference proceedings, the Booker T. Washington Papers, and Historical Map Collections. Articles in the American Historical Review are available for free without a subscription; reviews are available only by subscription.

This project provides a collection of more than 280 digitized materials documenting the history of Florida from pre-contact to the present. It includes materials relating to Florida history, culture, arts, literature, and social sciences in a number of major thematic areas, including Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, natural environment, and regional interests. These materials are drawn from the archives, special collections, and libraries of the 10 state universities in the Florida system.

Items include family papers, local history books and booklets, diaries, advertising materials, and Civil War letters, business records, maps, and photographs. Many of the materials are regional or local in scope.

The site also includes an extensive (5000-word) Florida history narrative timeline from pre-contact (before 1492) to the present. A user guide and tutorial are provided, and the documents are searchable by county name, keyword, subject, author, or title. The search engine has an option for listing either electronic holdings only or all collection holdings under a particular subject. Entries in the electronic catalog include the archive in which the original is located as well as a 20-word description of the item and its contents.

Note that a few links are still under construction with no completion date indicated. The site is ideal for researching Florida's state and local history.

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.

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.

This bilingual website (English and French) explores the history of the French presence in North America from the early 16th century to the end of the 19th century through more than 360 manuscripts, books, maps, and other documents. Each thematic presentation—"Exploration and Knowledge," "The Colonies," "Franco-Indian Alliances," "Imperial Struggles," and "The French and North America after the Treaty of Paris"—includes a title exhibit and additional exhibits that highlight particular items in the collection. Materials can also be browsed in the collections section.

A timeline (1515–1804) organizes events in French America by explorations, colonization and development, and conflicts and diplomacy, and places them in the context of events in France. Additionally, there are eight descriptive maps that show various Indian groups in contact with the French and the changes in political boundaries in North America from before 1763 to the era of the Louisiana Purchase.