This site offers books and journals related to the science of home economics. Its goal is to document the rise of home economics to a profession, beginning around the middle of the 19th century, and to correct an academic marginalization of the field.

Primarily focused on the years from 1850 through 1925, the site contains digitized texts of 934 books and 218 journal volumes, totaling almost 400,000 pages. Visitors may use the search engine, or look through the Subject index, or browse alphabetically by author, title, or year of publication.

Topics range from Child Care to Housekeeping to Retail. Each entry includes a 500- to 750-word essay, two or three images, a very detailed bibliography (available as a PDF file), and a list of possible subtopics. This is an outstanding site full of primary sources and a great resource for researchers, students, and teachers.

Writings of three African American women of the 19th century are offered in this site. Features scanned images and transcriptions of an 85-page memoir by Elizabeth Johnson Harris (1867-1923), a Georgia woman whose parents had been slaves, along with 13 attached pages of newspaper clippings containing short prose writings and poems by Harris; a 565-word letter written in 1857 by a North Carolinia slave named Vilet Lester; and four letters written between 1837 and 1838 by Hannah Valentine and Lethe Jackson, slaves on an Abingdon, VA, plantation.

The documents are accompanied by three background essays ranging in length from 300 to 800 words, six photographs, a bibliography of seven titles on American slave women, and eight links to additional resources. Though modest in size, this site contains documents of value for their insights into the lives of women living under slavery and during its aftermath in the South.

This collection from one of the nation's leading repositories for sources on women's history features photographs, letters, account books, diaries, legal documents, artwork, and memorabilia generated by four prominent northeastern families from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries. The four families—the Bodmans, Dunhams, Garrisons, and Hales—are white, middle-class families, and their experiences represent only a portion of American society in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

This site features 63 documents and images gathered from the families' papers ,and there are two ways to navigate them: by family or by one of four themes (Family Life, Social Awareness and Reform, Arts and Leisure, and Work). Each family or theme has its own page, with short (350–500 word) interpretive text combined with excerpts from the documents. Each excerpt is accompanied by links to the entire document—both a scanned image and a transcription.

The theme "family life" contains documents that reflect courtship patterns over the 19th century, childrearing practices, and 19th-century gender roles. "Social awareness and reform" features items related to the abolition of slavery and changing perceptions of race, and women's suffrage. Some of the materials within "arts and leisure" reflect increased opportunities for professional women artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The "work" theme includes materials that demonstrate the barriers women faced within the workplace. This site, when supplemented with additional resources, can help show students how to use family papers to study U.S. history.

The Brittinghams were a prominent and influential family in Wisconsin. This collection of more than 1,600 images consists of their personal and travel photographs taken between the years 1897 and 1922. These images "capture the private lives of a wealthy family at the turn of the century, and document their travels to 22 states and 32 countries." The wide variety of subjects includes family life, social life, the Brittingham homes, and various scenes from around Wisconsin. More than 750 slides picture international locations. The site also offers an interesting collection of slides that picture forms of transportation encountered by the Brittinghams, including airplanes, sailboats, streetcars, trains, carriages, and sedans.

The collection can be browsed in its entirety or by pre-selected subjects (Wisconsin, Brittingham family, social life, international travel, interiors, or transportation). Visitors can search the slide collection by using the guided search option and selecting Brittingham Lantern Slides in the drop-down menu. For those researching the lives of the well-to-do in the U.S. at the turn of the century or, more generally, the social and cultural history of Wisconsin or the U.S. in the early decades of the twentieth century, this collection of images is a useful resource.

19th-century Cincinnati, OH, an economically prosperous city and a "Gateway to the West," was a microcosm of the changes in domestic life occurring throughout the United States. This website uses music, commonly performed and appreciated in family parlors, to help users better understand these changes, as well as common social, economic, and religious values among Cincinnati's majority population of white Protestants. The 21 songs included are divided by theme: Family Life, Singing Schools, Religion, Rural Values, Temperance, Parlor Music, and Minstrel Songs. "You'll Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry" exemplifies some of the changes in family life, describing the lessons a young man learned from his mother, and then re-learned later for himself, about forging a successful life on his own.

Sheet music and an audio recording are provided for all songs, which are also accompanied by brief annotations. Two substantive, scholarly essays on "Life in 19th Century Cincinnati and "Understanding the Music," provide historical context. A bibliography and list of related Library of Congress websites provide opportunities for further exploration.