The Tax History Project

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Created by a nonprofit group interested in "open debate on federal, state, and international tax policy," this site furnishes an eclectic range of primary and secondary resources on the history of American taxation. "Tax History Museum" currently offers a 23,000-word narrative in eight chronological segments summarizing tax policy and politics from 1660 to 1900, supplemented with 70 images and links to related documents. The 20th-century portion is in development. "The Price of Civilization" makes available 14 posters and more than 6,500 pages of federal documents—primarily Treasury Department reports—on the development of the current tax system during the Great Depression and World War II. "Presidential Tax Returns" includes returns of recent presidents and Vice President Cheney. "Taxing Federalism" features nine Federalist Papers, and "Image Gallery" offers 15 political cartoons from the turn of the century to 1947, many by Washington Star cartoonist Clifford Berryman. The site also offers a bibliography and four sound clips of federal officials discussing tax policy.

SIRIS Image Gallery

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Highlights from the Smithsonian Institution are presented here, with access to a database of close to 140,000 images from Smithsonian archives and museums. The Image Gallery presents a sample of images, browsable by format, such as photographs, slides, drawings, postcards, and stereographs. Images are also organized by repository, including the Freer Gallery, the Archives Center, and the National Anthropological Archive.

"Frequently Used Images" provides a link to the most popular images, sorted by month and year. Within the Archives Center, for example, there are four collections with more than 30,000 images, including the Underwood and Underwood Glass Stereograph Collection, 1895–1921 on topics such as actors, African Americans, disasters, ethnic humor, immigration, Indians, labor, presidents, women, and World War I. The Addison N. Scurlock Collection presents more than 2,000 black-and-white images, primarily of Washington, DC, and from African American life. There are 1,500 advertisements from the Ivory Soap Advertising Collection and close to 200 postcards. All images may be searched via the "Search Images" tab.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City causing the deaths of 148 garment workers—an event that came to be known as one of the hallmark tragedies of the industrial age. This website tells the story of the fire in six chapters: Introduction; Sweatshops and Strikes; Fire; Mourning and Protest; Relief Work; and Investigation, Trial, and Reform.

The text, targeted to a middle and high school audience, is accompanied by numerous primary sources that could be of use to more advanced researchers. These include close to 70 photographs, 18 newspaper articles, 17 testimonials, three oral histories, excerpts from investigative reports written in the years following the fire, several letters from witnesses, a lecture given by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins in 1964, and a radio drama reenacting the event. Accompanying these primary sources is a list of victims and witnesses, a selected bibliography of works surrounding the fire, and tips for writing a paper.

Touring Turn-of-the-Century America

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The Detroit Publishing Company mass produced photographic images—especially color postcards, prints, and albums—for the American market from the late 1890s to 1924. This collection offers more than 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies and about 300 color photolithographs from this company. It also includes images taken prior to the company's formation by landscape photographer William Henry Jackson, who became the company's president in 1898. Jackson's work documenting western sites influenced the conservation movement. Although many images were taken in eastern locations, other areas of the U.S., the Americas, and Europe are represented. The collection specializes in views of buildings, streets, colleges, universities, natural landmarks, and resorts, as well as copies of paintings. Nearly 300 photographs were taken in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. About 900 Mammoth Plate Photographs include views of Hopi peoples and their crafts and landscapes along several railroad lines in the 1880s and 1890s.

Readex Digital Collections

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Hundreds of thousands of documents spanning four centuries of American history are available in this large archive. Broadsides, ephemera, pamphlets, and booklets are available from 1639 to 1900. More than 1,300 newspaper titles, representing all 50 states, range in date from 1690 to 1922. U.S. Senate and House of Representatives reports, journals, and other documents are available from 1817 to 1980. Legislative and executive documents from the Early Republic are also included. The entire body of documents is keyword searchable, and, in addition, each collection can be searched and browsed individually. These documents shed light on many aspects of American social, political, economic, and cultural history, and can provide a valuable window into the daily lives of early Atlantic peoples. The collection of broadsides and ephemera is especially useful for exploring the history of printing in the United States, as all titles can be browsed by bookseller, printer, or publisher.

Nineteenth-Century American Children and What They Read

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This site is devoted to the examination of 19th-century children in America: what they read, what was written about them, and what was written for them. "Children" includes letters, adoption advertisements, paper rewards for obedient children, 24 contemporary articles for and about children, and 14 photographs, as well as scrapbooks and exercise books. "Magazines" features illustrations, articles, editorials, and letters from 12 different children's magazines, with cover and masthead images from 173 different volumes. "Books" includes 22 articles on children and reading (including one warning children to avoid mental gluttony by not reading too much), and the full text of 29 books, including the American Spelling Book and grammar primers. Although the site is not searchable, the documents are indexed and arranged by subject. The site includes eight analytical essays written by modern scholars, a timeline covering the years 1789 to 1873 (with entries covering subjects like magazines, books, historical events, and people), and eight separate bibliographies. A "puzzle drawer" includes word games played by 19th-century children.

Selling the Computer Revolution: Marketing Brochures in the Collection

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Presenting more than 250 computer marketing brochures from 1948 to 1988, this collection represents materials from more than 90 companies.

Visitors can explore the entire collection or browse by company. Categories include: calculators, mainframes, minicomputers, personal computers, supercomputers; applications for which the computer was intended; and decade.

Of particular interest are six early marketing brochures from Apple Computer, a brochure for the Commodore 64 computer, and two mid-1950s IBM brochures for "electronic data processing machines." Each group of brochures is accompanied by a brief introduction with historical information about the company, category, type of application, or decade. The full contents of each brochure are available for viewing or download in .pdf format and each brochure is accompanied by descriptive data.

Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

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This colorful exhibit showcases more than 900 Work Projects Administration (WPA) posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of the New Deal program to support the arts during the Depression.

Silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters promoted New Deal and local programs dealing with public health, safety, education, travel and tourism, and community activities, as well as publicizing art exhibits, theater, and musical performances in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

Each poster is accompanied by a brief description. Three special presentations feature more than 40 posters, including highlights of the collection's breadth and depth as well as style and content; an audio recording with a silkscreen artist; and a Federal Art Project calendar. A bibliography of 10 related scholarly works also is included.

Photographs from the Chicago Daily News: 1902-1933

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More than 55,000 photographs taken by staff photographers of the Chicago Daily News during the first decades of the 20th century are available on this website. Roughly 20 percent of the photos were published in the paper. The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon paper, sold at a cost of one cent for many years, with stories that tried to appeal to the city's large working-class audience.

The website provides subject access to the photographs, which include street scenes, buildings, prominent people, labor violence, political campaigns and conventions, criminals, ethnic groups, workers, children, actors, and disasters. Many photographs of athletes and political leaders are also featured. While most of the images were taken in Chicago and nearby areas, some were taken elsewhere, including at presidential inaugurations. The images provide a glimpse into varied aspects of urban life and document the use of photography by the press during early 20th century.

Red Hot Jazz Archive: A History of Jazz before 1930

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Covering more than 200 jazz bands and musicians active from 1895 to 1929, this website offers biographical information, photographs, and audio and video files. It includes more than 200 sound files of jazz recordings by well-known artists, such as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Django Reinhardt, as well as many by dozens of lesser-known musicians.

The files are annotated with biographical essays of varying length, discographies, and bibliographic listings. Listings are available for 20 short jazz films made in the late 1920s and early 1930s as well as two video files. Twenty essays and articles about jazz before 1930 come from published liner notes, books, journals, or jazz fans.