For the Court of States exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce prepared a collection of albums containing more than 3,000 photographs on "twelve aspects of Virginia life: scenic tours; recreation; historic homes; culture; history; colonial archaeology; scenery and natural wonders; physiography; agriculture; education; government and the people; and industry, commerce, and transportation." These photographs are accessible according to 10 Library of Congress subject headings: geographic location, personal name, building name, historic subjects, and keywords appearing in bibliographic records. Useful for those interested in Virginia history or studying practices of historical memory.

This website is a companion to the one-hour Public Broadcasting System documentary Death of the Dream: Farmhouses in the Heartland, produced by Chuck Olsen of Twin Cities Public Television. The film and website were inspired by photographer and essayist William Gabler's book of the same title, and depict the first settlements, rise, flourishing, and decline of the farm houses of the midwestern prairie. The Homes on the Prairie section includes a lengthy (roughly 1500-word) narrative about the history of the settlement and rural culture that developed in the midwest, along with descriptions and 15 images of the different kinds of architecture found on the prairie. The Literary Collection category provides 13 links to poems, essays, and excerpts from novels that capture the character of the midwest farm life. Another section offers a virtual tour of a classic "L" shaped farmhouse, from the porch to the kitchen, parlor, and bedrooms. The site also contains a bibliography of five scholarly books on the midwest and rural farm life, links to seven websites on similar topics, and a bibliography of ten essays and photographic essay works about rural midwestern life. Though this site provides no primary documents, it is a good site for gathering general information on the midwest, rural life, and vernacular architecture.

Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, was a legendary fiddler of traditional Virginia Appalachian folk tunes. In 1966 and 1967, folklorist Alan Jabbour recorded Reed's music, and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress makes 184 of these sound recordings available through this American Memory online exhibit. The sound recordings are accompanied by 200-250-word descriptions of the history and origins of each musical piece, along with information regarding the features, genre, instrumentals, performers, location, and date of each recording. The site also includes 19 pages of field notes and images and transcripts listing the songs, including bullet-point notes about Reed's life and musical contributions. There are 69 transcriptions of musical pieces with roughly 150-word descriptive notes on the tune histories and musical features. A 3500-word essay about Reed's life and influence on fiddle music includes eight photographs. A bibliography lists over 200 related scholarly and journalistic publications on Reed's music and folk music in general, and the site also includes a list of approximately 70 musical terms. This site is ideal for investigating American folk culture and music, as well as the 20th-century resurgence of fiddle music.

Designed to document approximately 180 ghost towns in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, Nevada, California, Idaho, and Utah, this site features more than 1,700 photographs taken in the year 2000 of ghost towns across the west. About half the photographs include captions, while the other half do not. The site features a 750-word essay on the history of the Gold Rush, as well as an interactive map of the west that allows visitors to highlight a region, then an area, then a ghost town, to view photographs of the selected town.

In conjunction with the Russian State Library in Moscow, the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg, and the Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, the Library of Congress has digitized more than 2,500 items, comprising approximately 70,000 images, and provided transcriptions and commentaries in English and Russian to offer a comparative history of American and Russian expansion through frontier territories in each nation's continent. The site presents an overview of expansion into Siberia and the American West in six sections: Exploration, Colonization, Development, Alaska, Frontiers and National Identity, and Mutual Perceptions. Each section contains from two to 11 modules that call attention to similarities and differences between the two histories with regard to subjects such as migration—forced and otherwise, missionaries, religious flight, mining, railroads, agriculture, cities, popular culture, and tourism, and even compares Cossacks with cowboys.

The site offers more than 40 complete books, including manuals, handbooks, fiction, and travelers accounts; 77 maps and one atlas; 438 items from the Russian-Ukrainian Pamphlet and Brochure Collection; materials from six complete manuscript collections, regarding exploration, trade, and commercial activities; four tour-of-the-century films; 125 newspaper articles; 11 dime novel covers; five photographic collections; and one sound recording of a Russian folk song. Provides a 500-title bibliography and links to 30 related sites. Valuable for those studying the American West and Russian history and investigating ways to explore frontiers of comparative histories in order to expand beyond limits of national history narratives. Listen to the audio review: .

This site, based on a National Archives exhibition of historically significant photographs, commemorates 20th-century events and everyday life. The gallery features 70 photographs grouped into six chronological headings: A New Century, The Great War and the New Era, The Great Depression and the New Deal, A World in Flames (World War II), Postwar America, and Century's End. Images contained in the gallery depict events such as the first Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, Lyndon Johnson meeting Martin Luther King, Jr., a war protestor placing daisies into the rifle of a U.S. soldier, and Nixon's post-resignation departure from the White House, as well as images of everyday life across the nation and throughout the century. Each chronological section opens with a brief (75-100 word) introduction. A 30-50 word caption contextualizes each image and provides information on the photographer, if known.

A portfolio section contains another 48 images taken from the works of Walter Lubken, Lewis Hine, George Ackerman, Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, Charles Fenno Jacobs, and Danny Lyon. Each image in the portfolio is accompanied by a 5-10 word title, notes on the photographer, and the date and place the photograph was taken. All photographs are printable. This site is ideal for students and teachers of American culture, society, and historical events in the 20th century.

Audio files and song transcriptions of more than 1,000 songs recorded in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and Arkansas between 1956 and 1976 by Max Hunter, a traveling salesman. The complete collection of 1,594 songs is scheduled to be available by summer 2003. Includes lyrics for all included songs; musical notations for many songs with annotations providing information on how singers phrased certain notes; listings of the name of the singer, and location and date of the recording; and, where relevant, links to variant versions in the collection or similar songs in published sources. No information is offered for composer or lyricist. Users may browse singers and song titles or search titles using keywords. Users may also listen in three formats: RealPlayer, high quality AIFF, and in some cases MIDI. The archival collection includes additional material that may be available online in the future, including "fiddle tunes, jokes, stories, and what Max Hunter called 'visits,' or interviews with the people he was recording." As some of the songs include references to current events woven into verses of traditional lyrics--for example, a version of "Down in the Valley" taped in 1959 situates the singer in the Birmingham, Alabama, jail-- the collection should prove valuable for those studying American culture as well as folk music students.

This project provides a collection of more than 280 digitized materials documenting the history of Florida from pre-contact to the present. It includes materials relating to Florida history, culture, arts, literature, and social sciences in a number of major thematic areas, including Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, natural environment, and regional interests. These materials are drawn from the archives, special collections, and libraries of the 10 state universities in the Florida system.

Items include family papers, local history books and booklets, diaries, advertising materials, and Civil War letters, business records, maps, and photographs. Many of the materials are regional or local in scope.

The site also includes an extensive (5000-word) Florida history narrative timeline from pre-contact (before 1492) to the present. A user guide and tutorial are provided, and the documents are searchable by county name, keyword, subject, author, or title. The search engine has an option for listing either electronic holdings only or all collection holdings under a particular subject. Entries in the electronic catalog include the archive in which the original is located as well as a 20-word description of the item and its contents.

Note that a few links are still under construction with no completion date indicated. The site is ideal for researching Florida's state and local history.

A companion site to the four-part PBS series that began airing in October 2001 "to explore the roots of American music . . . Blues, Country, Bluegrass, Gospel, Cajun, Zydeco, Tejano, and Native American." Includes excerpts (from 1,500 to 6,000 words) from eight oral histories with important artists, including James Cotton, Bela Fleck, Arlo Guthrie, Buddy Guy, Flaco Jimenez, B. B. King, Alan Lomax, and Willie Nelson. Also provides profiles of up to 1,000 words each of 96 artists, 15 songs, and 5 instruments.

A Teacher's Guide includes four lessons geared to middle and high school social studies and history courses on "Finding the Story in the Song," "Desegregating the Airwaves: Blues on the Radio," "Gospel Music Meets a Wide Audience," and "The Strength of Native American Music."

This guide offers photos of some of the artists (but no audio files), a 120-title bibliography, and links to 28 related sites, but in its 2,000-word introduction fails to explain the reason that these particular types of music—and not other musical styles—have been defined as comprising the "roots of American music." Despite this vagueness of definition, the site will be valuable to students of American music and 20th-century cultural history for what it does include.

Provides more than 300 musical selections and sheet music covers, in addition to essays on ragtime music and related subjects. Music available as MIDI files, performed by site creator Bill Edwards, a professional musician and collector. Selections include descriptive annotations from 200 to 600 words, and many include lyrics. Biographical essays of 100-800 words each on 26 composers, including Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, Artie Matthews, and Eubie Blake. Longer essays (2,000-6,000 words) on the histories of ragtime music, player pianos, sheet music cover art, and technique tips for playing ragtime. A section on ragtime nostalgia provides information on people, inventions, events, advertising, city life, and rural life during the ragtime era. Provides annotated links to approximately 80 related sites and a bibliography of 17 titles. Valuable to those studying music history and turn-of-the-century American culture.