Law and Order
Description
Tom Hay, site supervisor of the Courthouse at Colonial Williamsburg, discusses colonial-era court proceedings, crime, and punishment.
Williamsburg's Public Gaol
Description
Gaynelle McNichols, supervisor of the Capitol and Gaol in Colonial Williamsburg, describes the function of the Gaol and the punishment of criminals in colonial Wiliamsburg.
Slavery and Manumission
Description
Bridgette Houston, an African American interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg, discusses the process of manumission, by which slaves in colonial Virginia might be freed.
No Master Over Me
Description
Colonial Williamsburg actor-interpreter James Ingram details the life of Matthew Ashby, a free black man who purchased his wife and two children in order to set them free.
Great Escapes
Description
Tom Hay, site supervisor in the Courthouse-Capitol-Gaol ensemble at Colonial Williamsburg, describes several notable escapes from the Gaol during the colonial era and the Revolutionary War.
The British Constitution
Description
Historian Nancy Milton describes the English influences on the U.S. Constitution, including documents reaching as far back as the Magna Carta.
Witches in the Colonies
Description
Author Carson Hudson discusses the perception of witchcraft in colonial America, including superstitions regarding witches and tests used in witch trials. Click here to watch a short vodcast about witches in colonial America.
Born in the USA
Description
According to BackStory:
"To mark the rebirth of BackStory as a weekly program, the History Guys set out to explore the earliest stages of life in America. They begin with a few of the basic assumptions we have about birth in America today, and spend the hour exploring how those assumptions came into being. How is it that hospital doctors moved in on what had been midwife’s exclusive territory? Why did Puritans think their newborns were damned from the outset? When did courts start ruling that fetuses had legal rights? Why have generations of Americans resisted the notion of birthright citizenship?"
The History Box
Image
Annotation
A gateway and an archive of numerous articles on New York history, this site "focuses a particularly long lens on the early history of political and economic events, panics, riots and other related matters affecting or contributing to New York City's development and growth." Its main feature is the New York state and New York City directories. (The U.S. directory is currently unavailable.) The New York state directory offers more than 700 links and more than 60 articles organized under 21 topics that include the arts, cities and counties, ethnic groups, military, societies and associations, transportation, women and their professions, and worship.
The New York City directory offers more than 5,200 links and more than 700 articles organized under 58 topics that include architecture, the arts, business matters, city government, clubs and societies, crime and punishment, education, ethnic groups, 5th Avenue, Harlem, immigration, New York City panics, real estate, temperance and prohibition, and Wall Street. The visitor can search the entire site or each directory by keyword. This site is a good starting point for researching the history of New York. It should also be useful for literary scholars, writers, and historical societies.
Ansel Adams's Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
Image
Annotation
During World War II, the U.S. Government forced more than 100,000 Japanese Americans to leave their homes and businesses, relocating them to internment camps from California to Arkansas. Well-known photographer Ansel Adams documented the lives of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California—from portraits to daily life, including agriculture and leisure.
This site presents 242 original negatives and 209 photographic prints, often displayed together to show Adams's developing and cropping techniques. His 1944 book on Manzanar, Born Free and Equal is also reproduced. Adams donated the collection to the Library of Congress in 1965, writing, "The purpose of my work was to show how these people, suffering under a great injustice . . . had overcome the sense of defeat and dispair [sic] by building for themselves a vital community in an arid (but magnificent) environment."