Florida Heritage Collection

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Graphic, Florida Heritage Collection
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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.

Conversations with History

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Photo, John Arquilla, Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey
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This is a collection of 107 transcribed interviews with "distinguished men and women from all over the world," about a wide range of topics. Harry Kreisler has been moderating this interview series since 1982 at the University of California at Berkeley. An additional 104 interviews are not available online.

Interviews are unedited and can be searched by interviewee, profession, topic, chronology, Berkeley faculty, and Berkeley alumni. The interviews may also be searched by keyword. Interviews are from three to 10 pages and address topics such as Africa, civil rights, Communism, ethics, free trade, human rights, and women's roles. Professions include education, diplomacy, law, journalism, psychiatry, history, policy making, and economics. Howard Zinn, Kofi Annan, and Robert MacNamara, among others, talk about everything from their own childhoods to global politics.

The "Research Galleries" present interview excerpts in text and video grouped around topics such as "China and the World," "Truth and Power," and "Women Role Models for the New Millenium." In some cases, the galleries include email conversations between interviewees, such as Alan Cranston, and high-school students. The site will be particularly useful for research in international relations.

Harrisburg's Old 8th Ward

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Photo, 418 Walnut Street
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This website is devoted solely to the study of 8th Ward from Harrisburg, PA, in the 19th century, with essays, images, maps, and directory lists. A virtual walking tour offers more than 70 pictures of 8th Ward buildings and a Then and Now tour pairs views of streets and buildings in the 19th century with views of the same areas today.

The site has three informational directories on businesses, institutions, and residents. The business directory lists businesses found in the Old 8th Ward organized by goods or services and provides the owner's name, dates of operation, and links to photographs. The institutions directory lists charitable organizations, churches, fire companies, market houses, and schools with links to photographs and a brief description. The extensive resident directory is organized by streets and lists residents with their occupation, ethnicity, years of residence, and other available information.

A guide to student research on the Old 8th Ward includes 16 scholarly essays on such topics as business and industry, churches and synagogues, newspaper accounts, politics, residents, and saloons. Additionally, there are six period maps and a miscellanea section with advertisements, newspaper articles, postcards, and real estate listings. There is no search capability. In addition to those interested in Harrisburg itself, the site is of interest to anyone studying urban development in the 19th century.

George Mason University Electronic Documentary History

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Photo, First graduating class, June 9, 1968
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Charts the institutional history of George Mason University from its beginnings in 1949–50 as an adult education extension of the University of Virginia located in northern Virginia, through its formal separation from UVA in 1960, to its present-day existence as a multi-campus university.

Offers more than 30 documents and nearly 50 photographs related to the history, a 400-word biography of George Mason, an annotated chronology, and a current 108-page fact book. Of interest to those studying the history of education and Virginia history.

Connecticut History Online

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Photo, Captain George Comer of East Haddam in rigging..., 1907
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This site is a collaborative effort between the Connecticut Historical Society, the Thomas H. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, and the Mystic Seaport Museum, funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It offers approximately 14,000 images depicting Connecticut's history from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

The images are divided into categories: "Artifacts," "Manuscripts and Documents," Maps, Charts, and Bird's-eye Views," "Newspapers and Magazines," "Photographs, Prints, and Drawings," "Posters/Broadsides," and "Sound Recordings and Transcripts." Each image includes notes on the creator, date, and place created, medium, repository information, and a brief (40-word) description of the subject. Visitors can search the site by keyword, subject, creator, title, and date.

The site also includes four sample lesson plans for middle school classes comparing and contrasting two Connecticut families and the roles of men and women through exercises interpreting the site's images, a list of ideas for future topics, and themes for secondary-level classrooms. This site is ideal for teachers and students interested in the history of Connecticut and its communities.

Bethlehem Digital History Project

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Oil on canvas, Johannetta Ettwein, John Valentine Haidt, 1754
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This collection of materials addresses the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA, from its founding in 1741 to 1844, when the community first opened to non-Moravians. Most documents are available in three formats: facsimile of original in German type, transcription, and translation into English. All documents may be read in English.

A 650-word essay introduces visitors to Bethlehem history. The community kept a diary that visitors may read for the years 1742 to 1745. The Journal of the Commission of the Brethren of Bethlehem, from 1752 to 1760, allows further access to the inner workings of the community. The death register currently lists 400-word obituaries for five women and six men. Birth and marriage registers are to be added to the site.

Moravians of this era read memoirs (2,000–3,000 words) at the funerals of community members, sometimes incorporating autobiographical writing. Visitors may read 34 of these memoirs.

The records of the community also include four maps, a survey, and the ledgers of the town finances from 1747 to 1765. Inventories of four shops may also be examined.

Other material includes a 32-page 1876 historical sketch of the Bethlehem Seminary for Young Ladies, a 19-page scholarly essay on the Moravian approach to business, and a 1762 discussion of how to finance the Single Sisters' Choir. Visitors may search the site by subject. The site will be very interesting for research in colonial history and the history of religion in America.

Children in Urban America: A Digital Archive

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Photo, Lester Earl Kesserling playing. . . , 1926, Children in Urban America
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This website offers more than 4,000 primary sources, including newspaper stories, photographs, statistics, oral histories, and personal narratives, related to children and childhood in urban America, specifically in the greater Milwaukee area, from 1850 to 2000. The search page is the most direct route to these sources and is accessible by clicking on the purple kite in the top, right corner of some pages. On other pages, "search entire site" in the footer is the only link. The site is organized around five sections-Work, Play and Leisure, Schooling, Health and Welfare, and "Through Children's Eyes." Each section offers a 150-word introduction, a gallery of five to 40 images, and approximately five "Special Topics" that combine a background essay (300 to 500 words) and a collection of five to ten relevant primary sources. "Special Topics" range from the Socialist Party, religion, and newsboys to National Child Health day and polio in Milwaukee County.

A section for teachers and students offers 25 possible research questions and tips for middle school, high school, and college and cover a host of topics, from games to newspaper coverage of children to the impact of technology on the lives of children. This website is useful for studying childhood and urbanization during a time when what it meant to be a child was changing rapidly.

Alaska's Digital Archive

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Photo, Chief Cow-Dik-Ney. . . , 1906, Case and Draper, Alaska's Digital Archive
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This website offers access to the digital collections of six Alaska universities and museums. The more than 3,700 historical images of Alaska can be browsed in their entirety or by selecting specific thematic collections organized under the two broad themes. "Alaska Native History and Cultures" has 12 collections with themes that include ceremonial life, education, native leadership and politics, making a living, and health care facilities. "Movement to Statehood" has seven collections with themes such as government, business and commerce, natural resources, transportation, and society and daily life.

Both "Alaska Native History" and "Movement to Statehood" can be browsed by region or time period. Bibliographic data accompanies each image. The user can also search the collection by phrase or keyword. Future stages of the project will add oral histories, maps, documents, and film clips in multiple formats. Alaska's Digital archive is an outstanding resource for those seeking images of Alaska's history.

Library of Congress: Webcasts

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Photo, introductory image, Library of Congress Webcasts
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This video archive assembles Library of Congress webcasts in one easily accessible location. The biography and history section offers 159 webcasts of talks by historians, writers, commentators, and political figures, including historians Joseph J. Ellis, John Hope Franklin, Jill Lepore, Lawrence W. Levine, David McCullough, and Robin Shields and writers and commentators David Brooks and Andrea Mitchell. The wide variety of subjects discussed include Vietnam, Iraq, Abraham Lincoln, early American printers and the Declaration of Independence, Pearl Harbor, the national character, early African American life, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The section on government has 67 webcasts by current and former government officials, such as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, George Shultz, and David Weinberger. Subjects include intellectual freedom, global democratic governance, and guardianship and the First Amendment. Moreover, the site offers 56 webcasts on culture and the performing arts and 305 webcasts on poetry and literature. There are also sections on religion, science and technology, and education. This website is a useful resource for information on historical subjects from the historians and authors who have written about them.

Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles Collection

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From Historic Picture Tells of Father. . . , Sheboygan Press, 1918, WHS
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This extensive archive assembles some 16,000 historical and biographical articles preserved in scrapbooks at the Wisconsin Historical Society in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The primary focus of the collection is the people and communities of Wisconsin. Most of the articles were published between 1860 and 1940 in hundreds of local Wisconsin newspapers. Together the articles contain more than 50,000 pages, all of which are available in the archive. Articles are displayed as page images, but transcripts are not provided. Visitors can search the collection by keyword or search by dropdown menus of counties, newspapers, or topics. Topics include agriculture, architecture, education, government and politics, Indians and Native Peoples, industry, and transportation. Full-text searching of the articles is not possible. An excellent resource for researching the social, cultural, and political history of Wisconsin and its people.