A selection of approximately 200 historical maps covering all parts of the world and ranging in time from the early 16th to the late 19th centuries. Provides more than 50 maps of the Americas, with 16 of American cities. Includes a 1641 map showing the layout of the New Haven community and a 1770 "New Map of the Cherokee Nation." Links to five previous exhibitions with 60 maps and explanatory texts of between 1,600 and 2,800 words each on road maps, three-dimensional maps, and fanciful maps. The site also includes listings for 19 reference sources and links to 48 other sites for maps and cartographic studies. A modest, but useful collection for those studying the history of cartography and exploration, and those needing cartographic aids for other historical subjects.

Provides more than 1,000 historical maps and nautical charts—mostly from the 19th century—produced or acquired by the Office of Coast Survey. Includes a Civil War collection of approximately 500 maps; a 90-sheet 1888 topological survey of the Washington, D.C. area; a 48-sheet topological survey of Cincinnati made in 1912; and 16 facsimiles of explorer George Vancouver's charts of the Pacific Northwest made between 1791 and 1798. Additional resources include 27 maps of the Erie Barge Canal made between 1917 and 1923; a 43-sheet survey of the Mississippi River made between 1868 and 1880; and approximately 50 sketches of landscape areas along both coasts. Maps can be viewed at 100 dpi or downloaded at 300 dpi. Organized by region and type of map. Valuable for those studying the Civil War, Washington, D.C., history, and various water-related government projects of the 19th century.

Furnishes more than 19,000 survey reports, more than 6,200 photographs, and 103 annotated county and city maps that document the history of thousands of structures built in Virginia prior to the Civil War. Original research was gathered in the late 1930s by the Virginia Writers's Project, a branch of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and includes information compiled by field workers through onsite investigations—including interviews with residents—and by using court records and other local resources. Provides descriptions of architectural details, histories of buildings, lists of owners, and in many cases photographs and sketches. The project was "specifically charged with describing the vernacular architecture and history of everyday buildings built before 1860: homes, workplaces, churches, public buildings." Also includes materials on cemeteries, tombstones, antiques, historical events, personages, land grants, wills, deeds, diaries, and correspondence.

Provides a 5,600-word essay on the project's history. Users may search reports, maps, and photographs by keywords; includes specific instructions for genealogical research and for finding documents dealing with the Civil War and African American history. Site creators note that many of the structures documented by the project "no longer exist, and the VHI photographs may be the only extant visual records of them." A valuable resource for those studying the material culture of Virginia's past.

This site offers published books selected from the Library of Congress' general and rare book collections in an "attempt to capture in words and pictures a distinctive region as it developed between the onset of European settlement and the first quarter of the twentieth century." Contains 139 books, a few by well-known figures, such as Edwin Booth, Frederick Douglass, and Thomas Jefferson, but most by little-known residents and visitors to the region. Includes memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, books of letters, journals, poems, addresses, reports, speeches, travel books, sermons, books of photographs, and promotional brochures. In addition to Washington, D.C., the cities of Baltimore, MD, and Richmond, VA, are featured.

A special presentation entitled "Pictures of People and Places from the Collection" consists of selected illustrations organized in three sections of 10 images each on Maryland, the District of Columbia, and Virginia. The site includes 10 works dealing with slavery—a number of which were written by former slaves—and approximately 10 works dealing with encounters between whites and Native Americans. Includes links to 22 related sites. A valuable collection for those studying ways that Washington, D.C., and neighboring regions have been described in print over several centuries.

This site was created to put books online that, because of age and condition, can no longer circulate but, because of content and importance, still should be made available to researchers. Currently the site contains seven historical texts, including John Nolen's Madison—A Model City, a text on city development; Fredrika Bremer's The Homes of the New World describing the author's impressions of the United States and Cuba during a mid-19th century visit; and Mrs. Asenath Nicholson's Annals of the Famine in Ireland, an eyewitness account of the potato famine. Each work is accompanied by a 100-150 word biography of the author, notes on the date and place of publication, and a list of other works by the author. The texts can be searched by keyword(s) and proximity searches. At the moment this site is somewhat limited in scope, but there are promises of future additions that would cover a wider variety of topics. Should a visitor have an interest in rare 19th-century texts, the Irish, urbanization, religion, or the lives of women, this site is a useful source.

ROHO preserves the history of the San Francisco Bay Area, CA, and the Western United States. It covers a wide range of topics, including politics and government, law and jurisprudence, arts and letters, business and labor, social and community history, University of California history, natural resources and the environment, and science and technology. ROHO has full-text transcripts of more than 270 interviews online (some with audio recordings). Offerings include the "Free Speech Movement Digital Archive," that documents the role of participants in the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, in the fall of 1964 as well as its origins and legacy; "Exploring Diversity and Access at the University of California," examining the experiences of African American faculty and senior staff at UC Berkeley with six interviews available and an additional 10 interviews planned; "Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front" project, exploring the wartime experiences of Bay Area residents, with 23 oral history interviews; and "Suffragists," featuring eight interviews with major figures in 20th-century suffragist history.

There are two searchable databases, divided chronologically from 1954-1979 and 1980-1997, of abstracts from the more than 1,250 interviews in the offline collection. The site also contains an essay on "Oral History Tips" and two "One-Minute Guides" to "Conducting an Oral History" and "Oral History Interviewing." A useful resource for researching the cultural or social history of California and the West in the 20th century.

This beautifully presented site features selections from Duke University's collection of photographer William Gedney's work and writings. From the mid-1950s to the 1980s, Gedney captured everyday life of people in places as diverse as Brooklyn, Kansas, India, and Europe. The site boasts more than 4,900 of his prints, workprints, and contact sheets. Photographs are arranged into 12 series: Composers; Cross Country; Europe; India; Kansas; Kentucky; New York; San Francisco; St. Joseph's School for the Deaf; The Farm; Night Series; and Miscellaneous. Each category offers a 35-50 word introduction to the series, and each image is accompanied by its title and a brief 5-10 word note on the subject matter and date taken.

Also on the site are selections from 33 of Gedney's manuscript books and notebooks, including ideas for book projects, descriptions of bookbinding methods and materials, and travel diaries. All of the writings are available in image form, and eight of the notebooks are also transcribed. Selected photographs, sketches, and dummies for nine book projects are also included, as well as a timeline of Gedney's life and work from his birth in 1932 to the San Francisco retrospective of his work in 2000. The site is keyword searchable and easy to navigate, making it an exceptional source of illustrations and images of American life, as well as an American's perspective on life in India and Europe.

This online archive of 170 photographs, selected from the National Archives and Records Administration collection, depicts the development of the American city from the early 19th century to the present. The photographs represent a wide range of urban subjects and original media; some images are photographic copies of paintings, engravings, and imprints, as well as photographs. The images are exceptional, and are grouped into six categories: Artists' Conceptions of 19th Century Cities; Skylines and Streets; City Life; Urban Transportation; The City in Turmoil; and 20th Century Art Reflecting Urban Themes. The finding aid offers a roughly 25-word caption for each item, including the photograph's title, medium, repository, artist, and date. Though the site is somewhat difficult to navigate, it is worth a visit for those interested in images depicting America's urban history.

A collection of 18 essays and 90 photographs on the history of Old West Durham—one of the oldest neighborhoods within Durham, NC—which began as a traveler's rest stop prior to the city's establishment in the 1850s as a railroad town. Traces the neighborhood's numerous incarnations as a hangout for "the shiftless of society" in the mid-19th century to a factory town following the establishment of Erwin Mills in 1892 to the site for Duke University's west campus in the 1920s. A period of rapid decline occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by its present-day renaissance as a neighborhood community.

The site includes seven Works Progress Administration oral histories from 1938, ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 words each, of people living in the mill village; seven newspaper articles from 1913 about the growing "suburb"; a 3,400-word essay on the history of the cotton mill and mill village; a 4,000-word reminiscence of a child growing up in the neighborhood during the 1950s and 1960s; and a 550-word essay on "Preservation North Carolina," an organization interested in preserving industrial heritage sites. The Old West Durham Neighborhood Association was formed in 1995 with the credo "Diversity, Harmony, Community." A well-designed local history presentation useful to those studying urban history and labor history.

History Link is an encyclopedia of the history of Seattle and King County, WA. A timeline of 180 "Milestones" connects visitors to 500-word historical essays on topics in Seattle-area history from before 1851 to 2000. "People's Histories" presents roughly 150 memoirs and oral histories (1000 to 16,000 words) of Seattle residents of diverse class and ethnic backgrounds, including Squamish and Nordic. There are 18 "Magic Lantern" photographic essays ranging from one image and 40 words to 50 images and 300 words. Special collections have been arranged in 17 folios, which cover topics such as Martin Luther King's 1961 visit to the city and the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in 1999. The WTO archive contains 19 articles of 100 to 2000 words on the history of radicalism in Seattle and the WTO protests of 1999 and 2000. This archive also contains 48 photographs of the protests taken by History Link staff.

Visitors may take four Cybertours of the city in which they click on sections of a map and connect to one or two images and 300-word descriptions of local history. "Then and Now" contains 49 before-and-after photographs of Seattle landmarks with 300-word essays on the history of each location. The site is easy to navigate and can be searched by subject. In March 2003, HistoryLink added a database for all of Washington state. It is an excellent resource for all levels of scholars interested in the history of the Northwest or oral history.