The Presidents

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All 42 of the nation's completed presidencies are profiled in detail on this website geared towards teaching the history of the American Presidency. In-depth biographies include information on childhood, education, career, elections, family life, domestic policy, and foreign affairs. Many biographies include links to numerous primary sources—speeches, writings, letters, and diplomatic documents—and to lesson plans. As a companion website to the PBS American Experience documentaries, these resources are hooked into a larger "Archives" section available at the top of the screen. Here, users will find thousands of resources, including maps, movies, and QuickTime Virtual Reality, on many topics in American history divided by theme and chronology, such as technology, popular culture, war, and urban and rural environments.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000

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Created by two history professors, this site was designed to provide "a resource and a model for teachers of U.S. women's history." It currently offers 45 mini-monographs, each comprised of a background essay and relevant primary source documents, organized around an analytical question concerning a social movement. Projects are organized into five subject categories: peace and international; politics and public life; sexuality, reproduction, and women's health; work and production; and race and gender. The site includes more than 1,050 documents and 400 photographs. Keyword searching, links to more than 400 sites, and more than 24 lesson plans are also provided. The site has expanded to include thousands of new documents starting in 1600 in a joint project with Alexander Street Press. The joint site requires subscription.

Vietnam Center and Archive

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This massive website furnishes several large collections. The Oral History Project presents full transcriptions of more than 475 audio oral histories conducted with U.S. men and women who served in Vietnam. The Virtual Vietnam Archive offers more than 408,000 pages from over 270,000 documents regarding the Vietnam War in addition to a number of video interviews.

The site focuses on military and diplomatic history, but aims to record the experiences of ordinary individuals involved in Vietnam and on the home front. Additional items address Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, as well as Americans and Vietnamese. Secondary and reference resources are also available, including conferences papers, and video versions of a 1996 address by former ambassador William Colby on "Turning Points in the Vietnam War."

Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943

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This colorful exhibit showcases more than 900 Work Projects Administration (WPA) posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of the New Deal program to support the arts during the Depression.

Silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters promoted New Deal and local programs dealing with public health, safety, education, travel and tourism, and community activities, as well as publicizing art exhibits, theater, and musical performances in 17 states and the District of Columbia.

Each poster is accompanied by a brief description. Three special presentations feature more than 40 posters, including highlights of the collection's breadth and depth as well as style and content; an audio recording with a silkscreen artist; and a Federal Art Project calendar. A bibliography of 10 related scholarly works also is included.

NSA and the Cuban Missile Crisis

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This website provides access to facsimiles of 100 declassified documents relating to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Documents include reports from Signal and Communications Intelligence and NSA memos, 20 written by the Director of National Security. For example, the first document from 1960 is entitled, "Indications of Soviet arms shipments to Cuba, weekly COMINT Economic Briefing."

Documents are indexed by date and include brief descriptions. The documents describe Soviet involvement in Cuba and Cuban military activities by year, focusing on 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, and 1969. This site also provides a synopsis of the crisis, emphasizing the Cuban arms buildup, the growing crisis, and the moments of crisis.

Presidential Recording Program

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More than 2,500 hours of White House recordings by six American presidents between 1940 and 1973 are available on this website. Presidents include Franklin Roosevelt (eight hours), Harry Truman (10 hours), Dwight Eisenhower (four and a half hours), John Kennedy (193 hours), Lyndon Johnson (550 hours), and Richard Nixon (2,019 hours). A substantial introduction to each set of recordings is provided and edited transcriptions of the Kennedy tapes are available. "From the Headlines" relates current events to the recordings. Eight exhibits with short scholarly essays feature such topics as the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, Johnson's "War on Poverty," and the Space Race. Additionally, the site presents 16 preselected multimedia clips that include recordings of Kennedy discussing withdrawal from Vietnam, Johnson talking to McNamara about leaks, Johnson discussing women in politics, and Nixon discussing Mark Felt during the Watergate cover-up. The site provides links to more than 40 related articles and links to related presidential libraries, document collections, websites, and articles.

History and Politics Out Loud

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Audio materials on this website were designed to capture "significant political and historical events and personalities of the 20th century."

Materials include 107 items, including speeches, addresses, and private telephone conversations from 19 speakers. Most material comes from three U.S. presidents—Richard M. Nixon (34 items); Lyndon Baines Johnson (30 items); and John F. Kennedy (19 items).

Additional material highlights international figures such as Secretary of State George Marshall; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill; civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and A. Philip Randolph; Supreme Court Justices William O. Douglas, Arthur J. Goldberg, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; and Soviet Union Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev. This website provides an opportunity to experience the persuasive speaking powers of 20th-century world leaders.

Women in Journalism

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Forty-four "full-life" interviews with American women journalists are available on this website. Interviewees include women who began their careers in the 1920s through the present. Print, radio, and television journalism all are represented.

Interviews address difficulties women have encountered entering the profession and how their presence has changed the field. They also discuss political life, famous people interviewed, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, and social, ethical, and technological changes of the 20th century.

A preface and an explanation of methodology introduce the site. Each interview is linked to a photograph and brief biographical sketch of the interviewee. Interviews range from one to 12 sessions and each session is about 20 pages long. Interviews are indexed but not searchable.

Parallel History Project on Cooperative Security

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These more than 350 recently declassified documents from archives of former Warsaw Pact countries and the U.S. reveal previously hidden aspects of Cold War military strategy. The project offers documents and accompanying analyses in six categories: Warsaw Pact records; Warsaw Pact war plans; NATO records (U.S. and British); national perspectives (Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, China, and Poland); crises (Berlin and Libya); and intelligence.

The website also provides 13 oral history interviews with former officials, including two Eisenhower administration officers involved with NATO planning and nuclear weapons policies. Documents reveal a 1964 Warsaw Pact war plan for using nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike against NATO forces and a 1965 Hungarian Army exercise detailing the targeted destruction of Western cities, including Vienna, Munich, Verona, and Vicenza. A 30-page survey article assesses the new history written since the release of recent documents.

Photographs from the Chicago Daily News: 1902-1933

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More than 55,000 photographs taken by staff photographers of the Chicago Daily News during the first decades of the 20th century are available on this website. Roughly 20 percent of the photos were published in the paper. The Chicago Daily News was an afternoon paper, sold at a cost of one cent for many years, with stories that tried to appeal to the city's large working-class audience.

The website provides subject access to the photographs, which include street scenes, buildings, prominent people, labor violence, political campaigns and conventions, criminals, ethnic groups, workers, children, actors, and disasters. Many photographs of athletes and political leaders are also featured. While most of the images were taken in Chicago and nearby areas, some were taken elsewhere, including at presidential inaugurations. The images provide a glimpse into varied aspects of urban life and document the use of photography by the press during early 20th century.