Bethlehem Digital History Project

Image
Oil on canvas, Johannetta Ettwein, John Valentine Haidt, 1754
Annotation

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.

New Jersery History Partnership Project

Image
Portrait, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Huntington, NJ History Partnership Project
Annotation

This project was designed to teach U.S. history through New Jersey history. Currently, materials are organized under two themes. "American Revolution" contains 10 lectures and nine lesson plans, seven images of New Jersey historic sites such as Liberty Hall and Morven, 47 primary source documents on topics such as women, African Americans, the state constitution, the Quakers, and the Lenape, seven video clips on topics such as republican motherhood, the Great Awakening, and the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and an interactive exercise on the 1776-1777 campaign in New Jersey. Lesson plan topics include revolutionary heroes, African American quest for freedom, and the Battle of Trenton. A timeline integrating U.S. and state history events from 1734 to 1807 is also included.

A less extensive thematic section "Market Revolution" offers a lecture, a lesson plan, and a video clip on New Jersey's transportation revolution, seven primary source documents that include an 1839 map of New Jersey and a map of the Morris Canal, and a timeline. Links are provided to three partner institutions, eight history centers or organizations, and 30 New Jersey history centers, organizations, or historic sites. This website provides useful resources for those teaching the 18th- or early 19th-century history of New Jersey.

Vietnam War Era Ephemera Collection

Image
Cover, Helix, Vol. 2, no. 3 (October 20, 1967), Walt Crowley, U of WA
Annotation

This small but interesting archive of 232 items "contains leaflets and newspapers that were distributed on the University of Washington campus during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. They reflect the social environment and political activities of the youth movement in Seattle during that period." The collection can be browsed in 24 thematic categories that include Vietnam protests, human rights, gay rights, feminism and women's issues, racism, socialism and labor, farm workers, peace candidates, environment, religion, fanaticism, "Age of Aquarius," civil liberties, freedom of speech, anarchy, communism, pro-Vietnam War, and Palestinian protests. Basic keyword and advanced searches are available. This website is a useful resource for researching the history of campus protest in the 1960s and 1970s.

Automobile in American Life and Society

Image
Hartford Auto-Jack advertisement, 1911, Automobile in American. . . site
Annotation

This website was designed as an academic resource for courses focused on the automobile and the automobile industry. Each section—design, environment, gender, labor, and race—has a short introduction and two illustrated scholarly essays (often including annotated bibliographies). The complete text of each essay can be viewed in a separate window and each essay is accompanied by a student and teacher resources section with one or more questions for reading, discussion, writing, and research, as well as questions making connections between the essays. "Design" also offers a list of 110 "automotive oral histories" available in the Benson Ford research center, but only 17 are available on the site. Visitors can search the site by keyword but no advanced search is available. This site is a useful resource for students and educators studying the role of the automobile in American culture and society.

AIDS at 20

Image
Image for AIDS at 20
Annotation

A 1981 reference to an unusual pneumonia in Los Angeles, California, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention marked the beginning of public discussion of the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, known as AIDS. More than 350 selected New York Times articles from 1981 to 2001 related to the AIDS epidemic are available on this website. Materials also include nine articles specifically related to the course of the epidemic's devastation in Africa.

There are nine videos, six multimedia presentations, five fact sheets, and four in-depth reports on such subjects as HIV medications, AIDS in New York City, HIV and teens, women and AIDS, the Federal response to the crisis, and the history of AIDS. The in-depth reports cover a diverse range of people affected by AIDS, including those of different ethnic backgrounds, and cover a wide range of locations within the U.S., including rural and urban areas.

Making of America

Image
Image for Making of America
Annotation

Also see the Cornell University branch of the project here.

Together, these two websites provide more than 1.5 million pages of text in a collaborative effort to digitize more than 11,000 volumes and 100,000 journal articles from the 19th century. The websites present full-text access to 32 journals, including literary and political magazines such as Atlantic Monthly and Harper's New Monthly Magazine. The list includes specialized journals as well, such as Scientific American, Manufacturer and Builder, Ladies Repository, and the American Missionary. The websites also offer an abundance of novels and monographs.

A recent addition provides 249 volumes on New York City, some from the early 20th century. At present, the two collections remain separate and must be searched individually. The institutions plan to integrate their sites, however, and to include material from other major research libraries. Access to many "Making of America" texts is also available through the Library of Congress American Memory site, "The Nineteenth Century in Print".

Alexander Street Press

Image
logo, alexander street press
Annotation

Offering 16 separate databases of digitized materials, this website provides firsthand accounts (diaries, letters, and memoirs) and literary efforts (poetry, drama, and fiction). Twelve databases pertain to American history and culture.

"Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment" offers primary sources documenting cultural interactions from 1534 to 1850. "The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries" draws on more than 400 sources and supplies a day-by-day chronology with links to documents. "Black Thought and Culture" furnishes monographs, speeches, essays, articles, and interviews. "North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories" covers 1840 to the present. "North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950" provides full-text letters and diaries from more than 1,000 women—totaling more than 21,000 documents and approximately 120,000 pages—written between 1675 and 1950.

Five databases present American literary writings: "Latino Literature"; "Black Drama"; "Asian American Drama"; "North American Women's Drama"; and "American Film Scripts Online." In addition, "Oral History Online" provides a reference work with links to texts, audio, and video files. While the databases include previously published documents, many also contain thousands of pages of unpublished material. In addition to keyword searching, the databases provide "semantic indexing"—extensive categorical search capabilities.