Center for Archaeological Studies

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Designed to showcase the work of archaeologists and their excavations at Mobile and elsewhere in Alabama, this website offers images and exhibits from several digs. Visitors can "virtually visit" archaeological sites in the town of Old Mobile, capital of the French colony of Louisiane [sic] from 1702 to 1711; the Mississippian Indian city of Bottle Creek (1100–1400); and the Indian fishing site of Dauphin Island Shell Mounds (1100–1550).

Additional sites include the French village of Port Dauphin (1702–1725); the Dog River Plantation site, home to a French-Canadian immigrant family, numerous Indians, and slaves (1720s–1848); and sites in downtown Mobile, including a Spanish colonial house (ca. 1800), an early 19th-century riverfront tavern, and antebellum cotton warehouses.

Artifacts features more than 250 images of pottery shards with accompanying descriptions. Great Links presents 30 additional websites that focus on preservation, archaeology, and Alabama history. The site also includes images and information on seven additional French colonial sites in Nova Scotia, New York, Michigan, Illinois, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Core Historical Literature of Agriculture

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Currently this website presents full-text, searchable facsimiles of 1,850 monographs and 288 journal volumes related to agriculture in the U.S. All were published between 1806 and 1989. Evaluations and 4,500 core titles are detailed in the seven volume series The Literature of the Agricultural Sciences. Fields of study covered include agricultural economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, forestry, nutrition, rural sociology, and soil science.

Types of materials include memoirs and transactions of early agricultural societies, newspapers, almanacs, agricultural periodicals, governmental publications, and archives of families, communities, and corporations. Users can search by author, title, subject, or keyword, then access the title page, table of contents, index, or pages of the text. These resources are valuable for studying the profound social, cultural, and economic effects of shifts in the history of American farming.

Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley

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Image, Apple II Reference Manual, 1978, Making the Macintosh
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The history of the Macintosh computer is presented on this website. Rather than profile Apple Computer's leader, Steve Jobs, and well-publicized software and hardware developers, materials include 13 interviews with designers, technical writers, Apple employees, a Berkeley user group organizer, and a San Francisco journalist who covered early developments.

In addition, nearly 90 documents from the late 1970s to the present chart company and user group developments, beginning with roots in the 1960s counterculture philosophy. Documents include "From Satori to Silicon Valley," a lecture by Theodore Roszak first delivered in 1985 with afterthoughts added in 2000. There are 13 texts by the first Mac designer, Jef Raskin, press releases and other marketing materials, and texts relating to user groups.

More than 100 images include patent drawings and product photographs.

Sugar Sack Doll

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From the Kansas Museum of History website:

"Lots of museums have dolls in their collections, but how many have a peasant doll holding a hoe and smoking a cigar? Get the scoop on this unusual figure, clad in a dress made from a sugar sack."

American Experience: The Crash of 1929

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From PBS:

In 1929 there were few critics of the stock market; it seemed to rise without limits. In fact, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted that America would soon enter a "New Era" when everyone could be rich. But when reality finally struck, the consequences of such unbound optimism shocked the world.

This American Experience documentary looks at the stock market crash of 1929 and its repercussions.

American Experience: Hoover Dam

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From PBS:

An ambitious engineer turned a ragtag army of unemployed into a celebrated work force to create the Hoover Dam, a colossus rising 700 feet above the Colorado River that became a beacon of hope in dire times, bringing electricity and water to millions in the U.S. west.

This American Experience documentary traces the creation of the Hoover Dam, located between Arizona and Nevada.

American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl

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From PBS:

In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, the Dust Bowlers stayed and overcame almost a decade of unbelievable calamities and disasters, enduring drought, dust, disease—even death—determined to preserve their way of life.

This American Experience documentary looks at the lives of those who fought through the Dust Bowl years.

"The Free and Open People's Market": Political Ideology and Retail Brokerage at the New York Stock Exchange, 1913–1933

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Julie C. Ott talks about the rise of the stock market and playing the stock market to the center of the American perception of capitalism and the idea of obtaining financial success.

To listen to this presentation, follow the link below, scroll down to "'The Free and Open People's Market': Political Ideology and Retail Brokerage at the New York Stock Exchange, 1913–1933" and click on the title, scroll down to June 2009 and click on the file link "200905.mp3."