Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800

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This subscription-only website presents an extensive archive of U.S. history documents, offering more than 36,000 items and 2.3 million pages on all aspects of 17th- and 18th-century American life. It is comprised of a range of publications helpful for researching social, cultural, intellectual, and religious history, as well as political and military history, including advertisements, almanacs, bibles, charters and by-laws, cookbooks, maps, narratives, novels, plays, poems, sermons, songs, textbooks, and travelogues. It is especially useful for the history of printing, as it contains an exhaustive list of printers, booksellers, and publishers active in this time period as well as images and the full-text of most of the books, pamphlets, and broadsides they helped create.

Users can browse the imprints by category: Genre, Subjects, Author, History of Printing, Place of Publication, and Language. Simple and advanced searches are available, enabling easy access into this large collection of documents. For those with access, this site provides an extensive resource for researching all aspects of 17th- and 18th-century North America.

September 11, 2001: Attack on America

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This site is an extensive collection of some 2,000 primary texts related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It features documents in the fields of law, history, economics, politics, diplomacy, and government, and includes press releases, briefings, legislation, executive orders, proclamations, and public laws.

The documents (with factual errors corrected in annotations) have been collected from sources such as the White House, Departments of State, Defense, Transportation, and Justice, the European Union, NATO, and the OAS. Users can browse the long list, arranged chronologically, or can pull up documents via a variety of drop-down menus. They may also search the collection by keyword, or jump directly to a particular date from September 2001 through April 2002.

Comprehensive and well-organized, this is a valuable site for those researching the political and legal aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

The Crisis of the Union

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This archive contains material related to "the causes, conduct, and consequences of the U.S. Civil War." The collection contains more than 220 books, broadsides, cartoons, pamphlets, and other printed material from 1830 to 1880. The entire archive can be browsed by author, date of publication, title, or subject. Abstracts of the titles are available. Using a built-in viewer, each document can be viewed in its original format (or downloaded in PDF form), and visitors can zoom in or out.

Visitors may browse issues of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, peruse the 1852 Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, or view dozens of Thomas Nast cartoons. Finally, visitors can also search the entire archive by keyword, subject, graphic element, or date. Visitors looking for comprehensive Civil War, Abolition, or Reconstruction sites will find more complete collections elsewhere; but this site's convenience, as well as its collection of early-19th-century tracts, make this a valuable resource.

Spain, The United States, and The American Frontier: Historias Paralelas

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This collection of primary and secondary sources explores the history of Spanish expansion into North America from Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas; across the modern-day American West; and north to Alaska. There are more than 200 primary sources, including numerous texts, 118 maps, manuscripts, and first-hand accounts, all written between 1492 and 1898. Some of the highlights include La Florida del Inca, an account of the Hernando de Soto expedition through Florida and the southeastern part of North America, along with the Notes of a Military Reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego, published in 1848 as a special report to the United States Congress. All documents are available in English and many of the documents are available in Spanish, as well. The collection is searchable by keyword and title and can be browsed. These documents are valuable for understanding Spanish-North American interaction.

The Annexation of Hawaii: A Collection of Documents

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Thousands of pages of documents concerning the U.S. plan to annex Hawaii, realized in 1898, have been digitized and presented in searchable form, with more material promised in the future. One section contains the 1,436-page Blount Report of 1894-95, initiated by President Grover Cleveland on the history of relations between the U.S. and Hawaii and the planned annexation. Another section offers Congressional debates on the Hawaii Organic Act, passed in 1900 to establish a territorial government in Hawaii. Hawaiian anti-annexation petitions from 1897-98 are available as are 10 anti-annexation protest documents, including six written to American officials by Queen Liliuokalani from 1893 to 1897. The site provides search capabilities within each section and across all materials. Although the site provides little context beyond the documents, the texts offer a rich resource for exploring the diplomatic history of early American imperialism, debates within Congress, and resistance in Hawaii.

United States Early Radio History

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This website contains articles and extracts about early radio and related technologies in the United States from 1897-1927. It is organized chronologically and divided into 24 sections. Each section is a long-form essay, containing numerous hyperlinks to reproductions or transcriptions of original primary documents, including documents relating to the efforts to provide entertainment and news over the telephone in the first decades of the 20th century. Essays vary in length, most 1,000 - 2,000 words, and many are original essays by the site's creator. The first section offers an overview of the individuals, activities, and technical advances that characterize the early 20th century. The subsequent sections include essays entitled "The Electric Telegraph" and "Radio at Sea." The latter argues that navigation was the first major use of radio and it helped to reduce the isolation of ships and save lives. There are also essays about the early development of the radio industry and the radio during World War I. "Early Government Regulations, 1903-1946" contains 18 documents covering early international and national control of radio and the final section on U.S. radio history covers such topics as "Washington D.C. AM Station History" and "Mystique of the Three-Letter Callsigns" about U.S. radio and television station call letters.

The site is a fascinating place for those interested in the early history and development of the radio and its subsequent effects on related technologies.

University of Missouri-Columbia: Digital Library Collections

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This archive makes available varied material on English, American, and Missouri history, including speeches, pamphlets, plat books, and government documents. The collection of Daniel Webster speeches offers more than 100 items that, in addition to his addresses and speeches in Congress, include sermons, addresses, orations, and speeches in his honor, as well as some correspondence. The Fourth of July orations collection contains more than 100 items, including orations by John Quincy Adams, Charles F. Adams, and Daniel Webster. The site also offers a collection of more than 110 Missouri county plat books published in 1930, a collection of various items of Missouriana, and a group of four miscellaneous texts that includes an 80-page text on the liberty of the press published in London in 1812. The collection of 17th- to 19th-century British religious, political, and legal tracts contains more than 400 documents and pamphlets published primarily during the English Civil War. Each collection can be individually searched. For anyone researching 17th- and 18th-century transatlantic history, the political history of New England, or the history of Missouri, this is a collection worth consulting.

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

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This website serves as an introduction to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, IL.

In addition to logistical information on visiting the library and museum (including floor plans, photographs, tips on planning school visits, exhibit information, and archival collection descriptions especially useful for researchers), the website also presents a substantial amount of digital material on Lincoln's life and times and Illinois history more generally.

New users may want to begin with an extensive timeline documenting major events in Lincoln's life. Teachers will be especially interested in the resources available in the website's Education section, which includes extensive guides to teaching the Gettysburg Address, teaching with objects, women's history, African American history, and celebrating Christmas at the White House.

The website also includes a Boys in Blue database of many Illinois soldiers who fought for the Union during the Civil War, as well as an oral history project documenting the lives of Illinois citizens from all walks of life. Current topics include war veterans and agriculture, with plans to include hundreds more interviews on statecraft, war and terror, family memories, and African American history.

Dwight D. Eisenhower Library and Museum

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A national repository for the preservation of historical papers, audiovisual materials, and artifacts related to Dwight Eisenhower, this site presents materials relating to his life and accomplishments. This collection indexes more than 675,000 feet of motion picture film, most of which document the years Eisenhower spent as president, but does not present the film. The site indexes more than 100 audio files that cover the years 1953 to 1958. In addition, the site includes full-text transcripts of Eisenhower's presidential speeches (nearly 400 pages of speeches in PDF format), and more than 75 photographs. The site includes six paintings made by Eisenhower. For educators, the site includes three lesson plans, including World War II Spy Kit: The Great Nazi Intelligence Coup, where students analyze primary sources and play a historical "what-if" game about the United States' preparations for the D-Day invasion. The site provides access to a limited number of primary or secondary sources.

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States

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This website is dedicated to the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, presenting material on his political ideas and his life through three main sections. "The Homestead" includes a 1,000-word introductory essay with six photographs. The richest section, on the history of Coolidge, includes a chronology of his life. An archive of speeches from his time as governor of Massachusetts to his time as President is also available. They consist of 28 early speeches, 20 during his tenure as governor, 11 from him as vice-president, and 31 presidential addresses. Twenty-one essays (800 to 1400 words) include "Coolidge the Victim?" by Hendrik Booraem V and "The Day Harding Died" by Frank Greene. Also available is a compilation of Coolidge quotes arranged alphabetically from "advancement" to "xenophobia." Visitors may access 20 papers presented at a 1998 conference on Coolidge and reprinted in The New England Journal of History. The papers average 1,000 words and include topics such as Coolidge's relationship with the Northampton Irish and his presidential legacy.

Under "Ask the President," visitors could ask Jim Cooke, an actor who has played Coolidge in a one-man play since 1985, questions about the President's life. Today, the archives remain available.