Oneida Indian Nation: Culture and History

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The Oneida Indian Nation, called the "first ally and steadfast friend" of the fledgling American republic, presents documents and historical studies focusing on the Revolutionary War period and on recent efforts to pursue land claims dating from the earlier period. Includes texts of six treaties or agreements involving the Oneida and the U.S. between 1777 and 1794; statements by the U.S. Congress, Presidents, and New York State regarding the Oneida; and President Bill Clinton's 1994 memo on "Government-to-Government Relations with Native American Tribal Governments." In addition, the site offers six essays by Nation historians and others, ranging from 1,300 to 7,400 words in length, on topics such as the roles the Oneida played in the birth of the U.S. and the War of 1812, and the land claim crusade.

Includes excerpts from an oral history project in which 13 tribal elders discuss food, herbal cures, crafts, annuity cloth, language, and land claims; a timeline; 35 press releases; a cookbook; and essays on lacrosse, legends, and the tribal creation story. The site promises in the future to include significant treaties from other Indian nations. Valuable for those studying American Indian history and culture, the Revolutionary War period, and recent legal efforts by Indian nations to pursue land claims.

WTO History Project

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Designed to provide access now and in the future to documents created by groups that protested the World Trade Organization's "Ministerial Week," held in Seattle from November 29–December 3, 1999. Offers texts of more than 80 oral histories of organizers and participants, 73 photographs, and images of 224 fliers, posters, and leaflets. Also includes 46 planning documents, 18 signs carried by protesters, two audio files, three videos, and a timeline documenting 520 events from March to December 1999. A second timeline covers the week of protests and a table with contact information for more than 1,400 organizations that opposed the meetings. Documents in the collection can be searched by keyword, organizations, and issues—labor, environment, trade, democracy, direct action, food, agriculture, health, and independent media.

The site's creators state they are "dedicated to ensuring that any account ever written of the WTO protests be attentive to the range of people who turned out, the varieties of strategies and issues they brought to the streets and the meeting rooms, and the coalitions that emerged and failed." As a result, the site will be of great value to those studying social protest movements in the late 20th century.

American Memory Learning Page

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Designed to provide support for elementary, middle, and high school history teachers, this site makes the entire American Memory collection at the Library of Congress available for classroom learning. Using the more than 7 million digital sources available through American Memory's 100 collections, the creators have written and collected 140 lesson plans for teaching American history. Organized chronologically and thematically, the lesson plans are detailed suggestions for classroom activities. Each has a recommended age group and uses primary sources collected by students or teachers from American Memory.

Especially useful are the included guides on using primary sources, using American Memory resources, and using digital or Internet sources in the classroom. A "Professional Development" section offers online workshops and tutorials to improve teachers' digital literacy. An excellent resource for the classroom, this site would be useful to both student and teacher.

The United States and Brazil: Expanding Frontiers, Comparing Cultures

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Designed to explore the historical similarities and contrasts, ethnic diversity, and interactions between Brazil and the United States, this site contains almost 1,000 images from the rare book, manuscript, map, print, and photographic collections of the Library of Congress and the National Library of Brazil.

The site includes letters (including letters from Thomas Jefferson concerning the independence of Brazil), illustrations, 18th-century maps, and other textual items, including poetry.

The sources are available in five categories: "Historical Foundations," "Ethnic Diversity," "Culture and Literature," "Mutual Impressions," and "Biodiversity" (right now, only the Historical Foundations section is completed). The site is viewable in both English and Portuguese, and is appropriate for high school and college students, as well as teachers and researchers.

The Vietnam Project

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This site presents nearly 1 million pages of Vietnam War-related research materials. It includes the full text of more than 80,000 documents, 60,000 photos and slides, hundreds of interviews with veterans and other participants, streaming audio and video recordings, and much more. The more than 685,000 pages of documents include official government and military records, unit and operation action reports, unit rosters, staff journals and morning reports, personal letters, and diaries. The collection grows by some 20,000 pages of new material each month.

Visitors may find useful the Acronym Database (to help with those mysterious and persistent military acronyms). The search engine has been recently updated, and no longer supports simple searches; all searches are advanced. The archive limits the number of users at any one time, due to licensing issues, so the site may be unavailable during times of heavy use.

Convenient, powerful, and massive, this site is invaluable for research into Vietnam units, individuals, and operations.

New France, New Horizons: On French Soil in America

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Designed to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the French landing in North America, this site is a collection of primary sources related to the French presence in what would later become Canada, the Great Lakes region, and Louisiana. Exhibition features 350 primary sources, including engravings, portraits, other artwork, as well as documents. They are organized by theme and are easy to find and view.

Database includes a database of more than 6,500 documents, including correspondence, reports, and maps. A special viewer allows visitors to zoom in and out of documents, making close viewing possible.

The collection is searchable by date, author, subject, or keyword. Visitors should keep in mind that although the site is written in English and French, the documents are written exclusively in French. The wealth of primary sources makes this a valuable resource for researchers, but language may prove a barrier for students and teachers.

Investigating the Vietnam War

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This site was designed to help students research projects about the Vietnam War. It is one of the 20 sections on Spartacus Educational, an encyclopedia of English and U.S. History created by John Simkin, a history teacher. The Vietnam site links to more than 100 sites, including timelines, personal accounts, statistics, visual images, and biographies of figures such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Ho Chi Minh. A smaller, annotated list links to 22 recommended sites.

The site provides students with approximately one hundred 1000 word biographies and email addresses of 11 people willing to be interviewed about their involvement in the war.

The site currently offers two collections of study questions, one produced at the University of California, Berkeley, and one produced by Simkin. Two professional historians host a discussion about the history of the war and help students explore the topic.

The site is slightly difficult to use; however, it is still an excellent resource for understanding the connections between personal experience and public narratives of war.

Pluralism and Unity

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Presents a wide array of materials that explore "the struggle between these two visions" of pluralism and unity in early 20th-century American thought and life. Arranged into six major sections: The Idea of Pluralism; The Idea of Internationalism; Culture and Pluralism; Labor and Pluralism; Race and Pluralism; and Gender and Pluralism.

The site links to major sites on such topics as ethics, politics, culture, sociology, anthropology, religion, economics, imperialism, hegemony, world systems theory, the League of Nations, Jim Crow laws, eugenics, the Niagara Movement, NAACP, KKK, unions, strikes, modernism, the genteel tradition, localism, and ragtime.

Outlines the perspectives of important public figures including William James, Eugene Debs, Randolph Bourne, Daniel DeLeon, John Dewey, Jane Addams, Horace Kallen, Scott Nearing, Max Eastman, William Cowper Brann, Madison Grant, W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Charles S. Peirce, Margaret Mead, Woodrow Wilson, John Reed, and Irving Berlin.

Although many of the site's direct links to texts by these figures are no longer operable, users can access sites containing important writings through the "Concepts" section of each of the six major parts. Also includes 12 audio components and dozens of photographs.

For its inclusion of links to many extremely useful sites from a variety of perspectives, this site will be valuable to those studying early 20th-century American ideas and debates and their resonance throughout later times.

The Digital Classroom

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A series of activities, primary documents, lesson plans, links, and worksheets designed to encourage "teachers of students at all levels to use archival documents in the classroom."

Includes tasks to help students understand how to use National Archives materials; 20 thematically-oriented teaching activities covering the period from the Constitutional Convention to Watergate; detailed information about National History Day, an annual educational program and competition; and 35 lessons and activities organized around constitutional issues ranging from well-known patent cases to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Many of the activities correlate to specific sections of the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Government. Also contains a handful of links and material about books, workshops, and summer institutes for teachers.

A well-organized introduction to the practice of historical research.

Thomas Jefferson on Politics and Government

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This site provides access to more than 2,700 quotations by Thomas Jefferson. Hosted by the University of Virginia, the site is designed and maintained by an individual admirer of Jefferson. The home page provides a 350-word description of the site, which is divided into six sections and 56 subsections of about 50 quotations each. For each quotation, from five to 100 words, the site provides a date, context, and citation information. Visitors may download a collection of 400 popular Jefferson quotations. Sections range from the "Fundamentals of Government" to the "Prospects of Self-Government." Subsections cover topics such as inalienable rights, foreign relations, and the duties of citizens.

The site may be searched by subject and search terms are highlighted within search results. There are links to 27 archives of Jefferson material, while 11 other links lead to sites about ideas that Jefferson is associated with, such as liberty and human rights. An annotated bibliography includes eight books about Jefferson. This site will be useful for anyone interested in what Jefferson had to say on topics related to government.