WTO History Project

Image
Annotation

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.

SDA: Survey Documentation and Analysis

Image
Annotation

Within this site—designed primarily to aide social science researchers and analysts to construct large quantitative studies that can produce analytic results quickly—historians can find studies of importance relating to trends and shifts in American attitudes and opinions. The site presents 12 surveys on race and politics, Italian prejudice, health issues, and voter attitudes since 1952, among other topics.

Perhaps the most useful to historians of the late 20th century will be the General Social Survey, an "almost annual" study since 1972 that has interviewed U.S. households to produce a set of variables covering attitudes on an eclectic range of topics—from abortion to zodiac signs—that have been chosen by experts as "strategic for social science research" and related to public policy. Since 1982, surveys in other countries have replicated questions so that cross-national analyses may be achieved.

Includes data on beliefs concerning welfare, free speech, gun control, class structure, pornography, race, media exposure, working mothers, and women's rights, among other topics. Contains links to eight additional sites that use SDA. Valuable for those studying American social history.

The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden

Image
Annotation

An engaging exhibit geared especially to schoolchildren, this site provides images, texts, and activities to explore the history and operation of the American presidency. Organized into four sections, the exhibit displays more than 375 images of documents, paintings, photographs, buttons, posters, paraphernalia, and objects along with short texts (50–200 words in length) explaining their significance. The Foundations pertains to the prehistory of the presidency, how the Framers defined responsibilities of the office, and the basic work that the office requires. The Campaign Trail covers the election process. Life and Death in the White House looks at the domestic world of the president, life after leaving office, and assassinations. Communicating the Presidency deals with the press, the entertainment industry, and advertising.

Most impressive are the many suggested activities, lesson plans, and games designed for children of varying ages. A Teacher's Manual contains five lesson plans each for grades 4–6, 7–9, and 10–12. In addition, there are activities for younger children, including analyzing letters between children and five presidents and creating a new official seal. Provides a timeline, bibliography of 88 titles arranged according to age group and exhibit section, and annotated list of 46 links to other sites. Very useful for classroom history and civics courses.

The Star-Spangled Banner

Image
Annotation

This exhibit tells the story of "the flag that inspired the National Anthem" through more than 50 images and short texts (50–200 words) explaining their significance. Also presents images from Smithsonian collections to illustrate sections on expressing patriotism, fostering national memory, and how "common cultural symbols, such as the American flag, patriotic songs, presidential images, and monuments, serve to coalesce a common identity among Americans." Elucidates challenges the Smithsonian faces to preserve the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key's poem.

Provides a teacher's manual in three sections for grades K–2, 3–5, and 6–8 and suggestions for using the site in the classroom. Includes a 10-title reading list, links to 14 related sites, and games designed to stimulate students to use primary sources to investigate "mysteries surrounding this famous flag." A well-conceived site, though modest in size, that will prove useful for K–8 classes.

Pittsburgh City Photographer

Image
Annotation

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.

Samuel F. B. Morse Papers, 1793-1919

Image
Annotation

Offers approximately 50,000 images of 6,500 items from the papers of 19th-century American scientist and painter Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872), inventor of the electromagnetic telegraph. In addition to science and art-related papers, the materials in the collection document Morse's interest in photography and religion, as well as his involvement with the American nativist movement. Includes correspondence, diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, books, pamphlets, broadsides, maps, drawings, and other materials, primarily produced during between 1807 and 1872.

The site provides a timeline supplemented with 15 documents; a family tree; two essays of approximately 1,000 words each (entitled "The Invention of the Telegraph" and "The Lesser-Known Morse: Artist, Politician, Photographer"); a bibliography of 22 titles; and links to 16 additional sites.

Searching capabilities leave much to be desired. Keyword searching applies only to titles assigned to documents by the Library of Congress. Thus even though the finding aid lists "Nativism" as a subject, a keyword search turns up nothing. The site unfortunately is of limited use because of this shortcoming.

Washington History

Image
Annotation

This website offers resources in Washington history through three main sections: historical records research, historical newspapers and classics in Washington history, and presentations. Historical records offers county census records, naturalization records, other miscellaneous records, and genealogical research resources, as well as searches of the state archive records and the state library catalog. The newspapers and classics feature allows visitors to search and view articles from four state newspapers dating back to 1852. Users can search the newspapers by keyword, topic, or personal name. This section also has 91 classic works on Washington history, searchable by keyword, grouped under topics of county and regional history, exploration and early travel, Native Americans, pioneer life, special collections, territorial government, and wagon trails and the Oregon Trail. Individual works can also be searched. (Newspaper articles and classics must be viewed using the DJVU plugin software, available for free download on the site.)

Additionally there is a Corps 33 bibliography of more than 35 works on the Lewis and Clark expedition. There are six presentations that allow visitors to explore Washington's territorial history through an interactive timeline featuring photographs and documents, view documents relating to World War I and profiles of Washington's soldiers, read the history and view historical photographs of cities, counties and corporations, browse a collection of historical maps of the state and the Pacific Northwest, view all 78 pages of the original Washington State Constitution and learn the history surrounding it, and explore the history of elections and voting in the state. The site also offers a collection of 96 images showing the construction and early history of the state's Legislative Building.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia

Image
Annotation

A web-based reference work, this site provides authoritative and accurate information on people, places, institutions, and events for many aspects of Georgia's life, history, and culture. The encyclopedia offers close to 2,000 articles and 8,000 multimedia files on a range of categories, including art, business, education, politics, history, religion, and sports with specific articles on topics such as architecture: building types (houses, public schools, roadside, and vernacular), military bases, folklife projects, and gymnastics at the University of Georgia.

Within the essays, there are links to related essays and external websites. There are also video and audio clips as well as images and some maps. New material is added regularly and the site also offers basic stats on the state, features and destinations, and galleries.

American Memory Learning Page

Image
Annotation

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.

Rediscovering George Washington

Image
Annotation

This site introduces users to the life of George Washington. Reflecting current scholarship, the site contains an Introduction, which is essentially a 4,000 word summary of Washington's life and career. The Timeline is a chronology of the milestones in his life, with a few references to national events. The Multimedia Room includes 11 audio clips of scholars discussing Washington's importance in the second half of the 18th century. Also included are four sound files of Pat Sajak reading memorial letters written by Thomas Jefferson and Winston Churchill, among others, and five video clips of Charlton Heston reading some of Washington's more famous letters and speeches (his Farewell Speech, for example).

The site contains a modest collection of 150 Washington letters, and a transcription of Washington's Book of Etiquette, which Washington himself transcribed when he was 16 years old. The letters are divided into pre-revolutionary, revolutionary, pre-presidential, presidential, and post-presidential collections; and include personal letters from and to Washington and his wife, as well as documents like presidential pardons, indenture documents, and land surveys. Teachers will find useful the 10 Lesson Plans (for grades 9-12), which are very detailed and include bibliographies. Listen to the audio review: .