Provides more than 1,000 historical maps and nautical charts—mostly from the 19th century—produced or acquired by the Office of Coast Survey. Includes a Civil War collection of approximately 500 maps; a 90-sheet 1888 topological survey of the Washington, D.C. area; a 48-sheet topological survey of Cincinnati made in 1912; and 16 facsimiles of explorer George Vancouver's charts of the Pacific Northwest made between 1791 and 1798. Additional resources include 27 maps of the Erie Barge Canal made between 1917 and 1923; a 43-sheet survey of the Mississippi River made between 1868 and 1880; and approximately 50 sketches of landscape areas along both coasts. Maps can be viewed at 100 dpi or downloaded at 300 dpi. Organized by region and type of map. Valuable for those studying the Civil War, Washington, D.C., history, and various water-related government projects of the 19th century.

A "National Registry of Historic Places Travel Itinerary" covering 42 places of significance with regard to the postwar African-American civil rights movement. Churches, colleges, private homes, places of business, neighborhoods, and government offices, primarily located in the South, are each described in 300-word entries illustrated with one or two photographs. An introductory 5,000-word essay offers a narrative history of the movement with annotations to specific sites. Focuses on the 1950s and 1960s, with no attempt to cover civil rights struggles of groups other than African Americans. A few sites cover events and persons active prior to the 1950s, such as Ida B. Wells's home in Chicago and the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington, MA.

Users can access sites from a map of the U.S. or by a list organized by states. Information for visiting each site is also provided, as is a list of 39 related websites and a 34-title bibliography. The site's creators note that the places were nominated by states and thus "do not represent a systematic effort to survey, identify, and list all important civil rights sites in the National Register." A useful way to introduce students to civil rights history.

This beautifully presented site features selections from Duke University's collection of photographer William Gedney's work and writings. From the mid-1950s to the 1980s, Gedney captured everyday life of people in places as diverse as Brooklyn, Kansas, India, and Europe. The site boasts more than 4,900 of his prints, workprints, and contact sheets. Photographs are arranged into 12 series: Composers; Cross Country; Europe; India; Kansas; Kentucky; New York; San Francisco; St. Joseph's School for the Deaf; The Farm; Night Series; and Miscellaneous. Each category offers a 35-50 word introduction to the series, and each image is accompanied by its title and a brief 5-10 word note on the subject matter and date taken.

Also on the site are selections from 33 of Gedney's manuscript books and notebooks, including ideas for book projects, descriptions of bookbinding methods and materials, and travel diaries. All of the writings are available in image form, and eight of the notebooks are also transcribed. Selected photographs, sketches, and dummies for nine book projects are also included, as well as a timeline of Gedney's life and work from his birth in 1932 to the San Francisco retrospective of his work in 2000. The site is keyword searchable and easy to navigate, making it an exceptional source of illustrations and images of American life, as well as an American's perspective on life in India and Europe.

A collection of 10 essays on "the modern American city as a space of representation," using New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the years between the 1870s and 1930s as focal points for interdisciplinary explorations. The essays, originally presented at the 1999 conference "New York, Chicago, Los Angeles: Cultures and Representation," run from 3,000 to 12,000 words in length, include approximately 100 photographs and address topics such as the urban novel, Harlem sidewalk photographs, urban perception in the fiction of W. D. Howells, urban electronic history, how the physical redefinition of Chicago in the 1890s "presaged and enabled the virtual city of a century later," and how public art in New York and Los Angeles represented the cities and their inhabitants.

The 3Cities Project, based in the departments of American and Canadian Studies at the Universities of Nottingham and Birmingham, has also produced the electronic book City Sites, which offers an additional 10 multimedia essays on New York and Chicago (see separate "History Matters" entry for a detailed description of this component site).

Highly theoretical and intellectually challenging, these sites will be valuable to those studying urban history, human geography, cultural representations, and societal consequences of the transformation to modernity in American cities.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper was published from 1841 to 1955 and was revived for a short time from 1960 to 1963. This website covers the period from October 26, 1841, to December 31, 1902, representing half of the Eagle's years of publication.

Approximately 147,000 pages of newspaper, in various digital formats, are available. Access can be gained either by date of issue, keyword, or by eight subjects (African American history, Bridges, Crime, Draft Riot, Spanish American War, Women and Women's Suffrage, Arts and Entertainment, and Holidays). A timeline contains detailed information about the creation and development of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. For an overview, users can browse the newspaper in five-year increments.

This photographic archive contains more than 1,500 images commissioned by the Pittsburgh Department of Public Works, Division of Photography, from c1890 through 1973. "The images show Pittsburgh parks, recreation facilities, and athletic events as well as hospital exteriors and interiors, mayoral events, traffic situations, and general street scenes."

The image collection emphasizes interior and exterior photographs of familiar and historic buildings and "interesting depictions of home life, and the famous and not so famous people of Pittsburgh." Each image is accompanied by bibliographic and descriptive information. The archive can be searched by image title, date, creator, location, address, description, or subject. A useful resource for those interested in urban development, city life, and architecture.

This site uses about 45 sources to document the planning and construction of the New Jersey Turnpike, opened after two years of construction in 1952.

Building It contains a 1,000-word history of the turnpike's construction, as well as eight primary documents from the planning stages of the highway, including an early map of the proposed route. A dozen promotional documents (pamphlets, public announcements, bond solicitations) and newspaper coverage are also available as is a narrative account of tensions in Elizabeth, NJ, where more than 200 citizens were displaced to build the highway.

Driving It includes 10 accounts from many of the first to drive along the turnpike, advertisements from Howard Johnson's and other turnpike concessionaires, and an excerpt from a 1950s film on highway safety.

Telling It features 16 primary sources, 10 driver stories, and accounts from toll collectors, as well as the story of the first highway worker to lose his life on duty in 1967.

Three Detour sections allow visitors a little diversion with short activities: visitors can match up song lyrics that mention the turnpike with the artists who wrote them (Bruce Springsteen and Simon and Garfunkel are included).

For teachers, the site includes an annotated bibliography of works for various age groups.

Presents approximately 14,350 photographs by Theodor Horydczak (1890-1971), most of which document the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area between the 1920s and 1950s. Subjects include the architecture and interiors of government, commercial, and residential buildings; views of streets and neighborhoods; images of work and leisure; and events such as the 1932 Bonus March and the 1933 World Series. Also includes a limited number of shots taken in other U.S. locations and in Canada and a background essay, "Discovering Theodor Horydczak's Washington." Provides visual documentation of official and everyday life in the nation's capital and its environs.

For historians researching New Jersey, this site's main interest will be its "state archives." "Catalog" provides access to nearly 200 pre-established searches on the archive's manuscript series, genealogical holdings, business and corporate records, cultural resources, and maps. Topics include military conflicts, society and economics, transportation, public works agencies, and photographic collections, as well as state, county, municipal, and federal government records. The other major feature consists of eight image collections with themes that include New Jersey Civil War soldiers, Spanish-American War Infantry Officers, Spanish-American War Naval Officers, Gettysburg Monuments, and views of the Morris Canal. The archives site also includes a searchable index of New Jersey Supreme Court cases, a transcription of New Jersey's 1776 constitution, and a table summarizing the holdings of the state archives. This site is a useful aid for researching the history and culture of New Jersey.

This website offers a collection of oral history interviews, images, videos, and scholarship on various aspects of the history of Harlem. It is divided into three main sections. "Arts and Culture" has six exhibits that include two video interviews focusing on Harlem's artists, writers, and musicians; oral history interviews with A. Phillip Randolph on the Harlem Renaissance and Dorothy Height on Harlem's theatrical scene; and a multimedia presentation on the Harlem Renaissance. "The Neighborhood" provides seven exhibits that include an oral-history interview with the first African American patrolman in New York City, an essay and video on the architecture and development of Harlem, an e-seminar about classic New York ethnic neighborhoods, an essay on the decline of Jewish Harlem, Bayard Rustin's reflections on different ethnic groups with economic interests in Harlem, and civil rights leader Dorothy Height's description of changes in Harlem and her attachment to the neighborhood. "Politics" offers four exhibits: oral history interviews with A. Phillip Randolph on Marcus Garvey's movement in Harlem and Bayard Rustin on Harlem congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., a video lecture on Harlem politicians, and a video interview with David Dinkens on 1950s Harlem. The site also offers a short (eight images) photo essay entitled "The Streets of Harlem" and a multimedia presentation on the 1945 Negro Freedom Rally. This site offers a useful and varied collection of material for those researching or teaching Harlem or 20th-century African American history.