This site is a collaborative effort between the Connecticut Historical Society, the Thomas H. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, and the Mystic Seaport Museum, funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It offers approximately 14,000 images depicting Connecticut's history from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

The images are divided into categories: "Artifacts," "Manuscripts and Documents," Maps, Charts, and Bird's-eye Views," "Newspapers and Magazines," "Photographs, Prints, and Drawings," "Posters/Broadsides," and "Sound Recordings and Transcripts." Each image includes notes on the creator, date, and place created, medium, repository information, and a brief (40-word) description of the subject. Visitors can search the site by keyword, subject, creator, title, and date.

The site also includes four sample lesson plans for middle school classes comparing and contrasting two Connecticut families and the roles of men and women through exercises interpreting the site's images, a list of ideas for future topics, and themes for secondary-level classrooms. This site is ideal for teachers and students interested in the history of Connecticut and its communities.

A product of the American Studies program at the University of Virginia, this site attempts to "construct a virtual American ca. 1831-32"—the period that Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States—in order to illuminate Democracy in America, his classic examination of political and social life in the young nation. The book is still regarded by some scholars as the greatest ever written about the United States.

The site presents a hypertext version of the book—one translation among many—accompanied by 13 projects on topics such as Tocqueville's sources and the 1840 Census, race relations, fashion, religion, women, art, navigation, and humor. These projects are uneven in quality, though a few—such as the navigation projects—provide useful primary material and worthwhile background texts. Overall, the character of the site seems somewhat ad hoc.

Dedicated to "enhancing knowledge about the built environment of the Chicago region," this site hopes to offer a comprehensive "system for indexing, storing, retrieving, comparing, and analyzing images, maps, data, literature, and other geographically-based materials" on Chicago.

Contains an array of historical and recent maps, photographs, and illustrations, plus textual information about Chicago's history and architecture.

Includes approximately 600 aerial photographs taken in 1996 by Alex S. MacLean; 83 photographs by C. William Brubaker; 14 by Robert Thall; multiple images of 55 buildings and historic sites; four Works Progress Administration land use maps; more than 30 images dealing with the Chicago Fire of 1871; 20 photographs by William Henry Jackson and Charles Dudley Arnold of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; 22 Rand McNally "Bird's Eye Views" from 1893; and numerous additional maps and images.

An animated map shows the city's expansion and the development of neighborhood communities from 1850 to 1990.

Presently, the site focuses on four Chicago areas: the "Loop," Lawndale, Armour Square, and Bridgeport. Though not updated since 1999, the site contains useful materials documenting Chicago's development.

Photographs from 1839 to the late 20th century are on view in 12 exhibits that offer 100- to 600-word introductory essays and a diverse range of images.

"The Face of Slavery" presents 10 photographs of African Americans from 1855 to 1905.

The work of Southworth and Hawes, a photography team active between 1843 and 1862, is represented by eight daguerreotypes of women.

In "Do You Believe?" visitors may consider evidence of ghostly existence offered by 22 "spirit photographs" taken between 1875 and 1932.

In "Photography as a Fine Arf!," 16 photos from the 1850s to the 1950s "explore the complex relationships of people and dogs."

In "At Ease," nine photographs from around 1850 refute the popular notion that early portraiture was stiff.

An exhibit of the trick photography of William H. "Dad" Martin presents eight photos produced between 1894 and 1912 that show exaggerated ordinary objects.

In "Of Bricks and Light," the museum exhibits 33 architectural photographs.

Business executive and photographer Shotaro Shimomura took pictures of his trip around the world in 1934-35; nine of these are exhibited in "An Eye for the World."

An interactive exhibit of nine cartes de visite allows visitors to investigate details such as the hats worn by men in Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession.

"Scott Mutter: A More Perfect World" presents 11 "hyper-realistic" photomontages by the acclaimed image maker.

"Masterworks of Photography" includes 25 images produced from 1840 to 1975, including English inventor William Henry Fox Talbot's "The Footman," of 1840, considered the earliest photograph on paper of a human being.

In addition, the museum showcases 42 of its favorite pieces.

The site also provides a 1,700-word explanatory essay on photographic processes and links to 25 other resources concerning the history and art of photography. This site cannot be searched by subject, however, which limits its usefulness for research.

This site displays approximately 90 primary documents from the 15th century to the mid 20th century. Features eight subjects: the presidency; Congress, law, and politics; military affairs; diplomacy and foreign policy; arts and literature; science, medicine, exploration, and invention; African-American history and culture; and women's history. The collection emphasizes "prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution," including 23 presidents and figures such as Carter Woodson, Thurgood Marshall, pioneer physician Elizabeth Blackwell, Wilbur Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Each subject is accompanied by a useful 100- to 400-word background essay and a link to the document's host collection. Also includes a 2,000-word essay entitled "Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division." Although limited in size, this site provides an eclectic group of documents of national interest.

Offers more than 13,000 images of items relating to the Works Progress Administration's Federal Theatre Project (FTP), a New Deal program designed to provide work for unemployed theater professionals. The collection contains 71 playscripts and 168 documents from the FTP's Administration Records. Extensive materials, including photographs, scripts, posters, and set and costume designs, have been selected from three significant productions: Macbeth and The Tragic History of Dr. Faustus, directed by Orson Welles, and Arthur Arent's Power, an example of the Project's innovative "Living Newspaper" series of topical plays. The site includes a 3,500-word background essay, as well as four illustrated articles about the Project. A FTP Collection finding aid describing more than 525,000 offline items may be downloaded, but is not currently searchable.

Features more than 200 "social dance manuals" and related materials in western dance history, from Burgundian dances of the Late Middle Ages to Ragtime dances in vogue between 1890 and World War I. The site offers a rich selection of manuals--including the rare document, Les basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche, published around 490--as well as histories, theoretical studies, treatises on etiquette, antidance literature, and other items. Designed to "illuminate the manner in which people have joyfully expressed themselves as they dance for and with one another," the site also provides a 13,000-word introductory essay, "Western Social Dance: An Overview of the Collection," which is illustrated with 44 images, 75 video clips demonstrating selected dances from the manuals, and a bibliography of 77 titles. A well-organized presentation that will interest students of dance and of the cultural history of Europe and the U.S.

This exhibit, divided into five sections, presents artifacts from New Deal art programs, introduced by a 250-word essay. "Rediscovering America" discusses "artistic nationalism" and provides five photographs and five paintings of American scenes. "Celebrating the People" exhibits five paintings and one photo of people at work and two photos and three programs of celebrations of folk culture. In "Work Pays America," five posters, two paintings, and two photos document and celebrate New Deal programs.

The 11 works exhibited in "Activist Arts" make more and less subtle political arguments, including Dorothea Lange's "Children in a Democracy" and a flier for a Workers' Alliance meeting. A section on "Useful Arts" exhibits 15 pieces, including informational posters, photos of quilting lessons, and a WPA handcraft wall hanging. The exhibit is easy to navigate, although visitors must return to the home page between each section. Useful for those studying the politics, social messages, and images of the New Deal.

Presents 29 photographs and five documents relating to Elvis Presley's bizarre December 1970 visit with Richard Nixon in the White House. Features a well-known photograph of the meeting and a five-page letter written from Presley to Nixon requesting an appointment as a federal agent "to be of any service that I can to help The Country out." "I will be here for as long as it takes to get the credentials of a Federal Agent," wrote Presley. "I have done an in-depth study of drug abuse and Communist brainwashing techniques and I am right in the middle of the whole thing where I can and will do the most good." Also includes background information about Presley's visit and official White House notes of the encounter. A revealing snapshot into the perceptions of these two public figures concerning the youth culture of their day.

Images and articles on the famine in Ireland between 1845 and 1851, including some pre-famine material on related events. Taken primarily from newspapers in London and Ireland, the site includes 74 images and 16 articles from the Illustrated London News; short reports and articles from the Cork Examiner, September 1846 to December 1847; 17 illustrations and two articles from the Pictorial Times of 1846 and 1847; 30 cartoons and four articles from London's Punch; and the contents of an 1847 pamphlet, Narrative of a Journey from Oxford to Skibbereen during the Year of the Irish Famine by Lord Dufferin and G. G. Boyle.

Provides a master picture list of 99 illustrations and cartoons from the materials, arranged by depicted subjects such as cabins, landlords and ejections, begging, food riots and attacks, relief, workhouse, funerals, voyage, and life in America. Also presents a list of 44 links to related resources. Although the site lacks contextual material, other than sentence-long biographical data on some of the cartoonists, it offers visitors visual and textual material that was available to contemporary Irish and English readers of popular print forms to make sense of the Famine.