Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860

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More than 100 published materials on legal aspects of slavery are available on this website. These include 8,700 pages of court decisions and arguments, reports, proceedings, journals, and a letter. Most of the pamphlets and books pertain to American cases in the 19th century. Additional documents address the slave trade, slave codes, the Fugitive Slave Law, and slave insurrections as well as presenting courtroom proceedings from famous trials such as the 18th-century Somerset v. Stewart case in England, the Amistad case, the Denmark Vesey conspiracy trial, and trials of noted abolitionists John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison. A special presentation discusses the slave code in the District of Columbia. Searchable by keyword, subject, author, and title, this site is valuable for studying legal history, African American history, and 19th-century American history.

Studs Terkel: Conversations with America

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Created to honor Studs Terkel, the noted oral historian, radio host, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, this website makes available more than 400 audio clips of interviews Terkel conducted over 50 years. The seven galleries explore a variety of subjects, including organized labor, the 1929 stock market crash, New Deal programs, World War II, Hiroshima, folk music, race relations, politics, and urban life in Chicago.

The interviews present well-known figures as well as ordinary voices, such as people traveling by train to the March on Washington in 1963. Complementing these interviews is a 55-minute video interview with Terkel in which he emphasizes the importance of accurate knowledge about the past. An educational section addresses the use of oral history in the classroom. This well-designed site is valuable for studying the Great Depression, World War II, race relations, and labor issues.

The Tax History Project

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Created by a nonprofit group interested in "open debate on federal, state, and international tax policy," this site furnishes an eclectic range of primary and secondary resources on the history of American taxation. "Tax History Museum" currently offers a 23,000-word narrative in eight chronological segments summarizing tax policy and politics from 1660 to 1900, supplemented with 70 images and links to related documents. The 20th-century portion is in development. "The Price of Civilization" makes available 14 posters and more than 6,500 pages of federal documents—primarily Treasury Department reports—on the development of the current tax system during the Great Depression and World War II. "Presidential Tax Returns" includes returns of recent presidents and Vice President Cheney. "Taxing Federalism" features nine Federalist Papers, and "Image Gallery" offers 15 political cartoons from the turn of the century to 1947, many by Washington Star cartoonist Clifford Berryman. The site also offers a bibliography and four sound clips of federal officials discussing tax policy.

Dred Scott Case

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The Dred Scott case began in 1846 when slaves Dred and Harriet Scott sued for their freedom, basing their argument on the fact that they had lived in non-slave territories for a number of years. The case ended with the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision of 1857 that not only denied Scott both citizenship and the right to sue in federal court, but ruled that he never had been free and that Congress did not have the right to prohibit slavery in the territories. The decision sparked increased sectional tensions in the years leading to the Civil War. Facsimiles and transcriptions of 85 legal documents relating to the Dred Scott case are provided on this website. The site also provides a chronology and links to 301 Freedom Suits—legal petitions for freedom filed by or on behalf of slaves—in St. Louis courts from 1814 to 1860.

Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project

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The long history of struggle for equal rights by various ethnic groups in Seattle, including Filipino, Chinese, Japanese, African, and Native Americans; Jews; and Latinos is documented on this website. Primary and secondary sources integrate labor rights movements with struggles for political rights, as is evident in the "special sections," that highlight the Chicano/a movement, the Black Panther Party, Filipino Cannery Unionism, the United Construction Workers Association, Communism, and the United Farm Workers. Each section brings together oral histories, documents, newspapers, and photographs that are accompanied by written and video commentary to provide historical context. The collection of more than 70 oral histories of activists is especially useful for understanding the lived experience of racism and its especially subtle workings in the Pacific Northwest. Together, these resources provide important national context for the civil rights struggle, too often understood as a solely southern phenomenon.

Truman Presidential Museum and Library

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The presidency of Harry S. Truman is addressed through these hundreds of government documents, oral histories, photographs, and political cartoons. Materials cover topics including the Berlin airlift, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, desegregation of the Armed Forces, the election campaign of 1948, the Korean War, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Truman Doctrine, Truman's Farewell Address, the recognition of the State of Israel, the United Nations, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Transcripts are available for approximately 120 oral histories conducted with members of Truman's administration and officials from other countries on the Korean War. The website also offers the full text of Truman's diary from 1947; more than 50 audio files with extracts of speeches, press conferences, and interviews; and more than 31,000 biographical photographs.

Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures

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The Spanish-American War was one of the first wars captured on film. This website features 68 motion pictures of the war and the Philippine Revolution produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company and the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company between 1898 and 1901. The films include footage of troops, ships, notable figures, parades, and battle reenactments shot in the U.S., Cuba, and the Philippines. Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders are featured alongside footage of the USS Maine in Havana harbor. "Special Presentation" puts the motion pictures in chronological order and brief essays provide historical context. "Collection Connections" provides thought-provoking activities and essay topics. This glimpse at early film footage enhances our understanding of the fledgling technology, and offers a way to better understand U.S. imperialism at the turn of the century. The films expose some of the ways in which the birth of cinema emerged alongside, and shaped, changing ideas of gender, race, sexuality, and nation.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City causing the deaths of 148 garment workers—an event that came to be known as one of the hallmark tragedies of the industrial age. This website tells the story of the fire in six chapters: Introduction; Sweatshops and Strikes; Fire; Mourning and Protest; Relief Work; and Investigation, Trial, and Reform.

The text, targeted to a middle and high school audience, is accompanied by numerous primary sources that could be of use to more advanced researchers. These include close to 70 photographs, 18 newspaper articles, 17 testimonials, three oral histories, excerpts from investigative reports written in the years following the fire, several letters from witnesses, a lecture given by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins in 1964, and a radio drama reenacting the event. Accompanying these primary sources is a list of victims and witnesses, a selected bibliography of works surrounding the fire, and tips for writing a paper.

Chicago Anarchists on Trial: Evidence from the Haymarket Affair, 1886-1887

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This collection of documents—roughly 3,800 pages of court proceedings—concerns the Haymarket Affair. This watershed event in the history of American radicalism led to the first "Red Scare" in America. Materials include autobiographies of two of the eight anarchists tried for conspiracy in the murder of seven Chicago police officers. The officers died after a bomb exploded at an anarchist meeting in May 1886, the day after two workers died in a struggle between police and locked-out union members at the McCormick Reaper factory. Four defendants were executed, despite lack of evidence connecting them to the bombing. The site presents approximately 221 newspaper clippings, 55 photographs, 19 letters, nine broadsides, and images of more than 20 artifacts. A linked exhibition, "The Dramas of Haymarket," furnishes a historical narrative and contextual interpretation. This website is valuable for the study of late 19th-century American radicalism, law enforcement, and political climate.

Votes for Women: Selections from the NAWSA, 1848-1921

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Covering the years from 1848 to 1921, this website presents materials from the suffrage movement in America, including 167 books, pamphlets, handbooks, reports, speeches, and other artifacts totaling some 10,000 pages. Formed in 1890 from two rival groups, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) orchestrated passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 through state campaigns. Materials include works by Carrie Chapman Catt, the Association's longtime president, as well as from other officers and members, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, and Mary A. Livermore. There are two bibliographies, an essay on Catt, a timeline, and links to 18 related collections, most of them associated with the Library of Congress American Memory.