These Territorial Kansas collections convey the growing divisions in Kansas and the nation over the expansion of slavery, federalism, nationalism, industrialization, and changing political coalitions in Congress. Materials include government documents, diaries, letters, photographs, maps, newspapers, rare secondary sources, historical artifacts, and images of historic sites. The website is divided into five sections: Territorial Politics and Government; Border Warfare; Immigration and Early Settlement; Personalities; and National Debate about Kansas. Each is searchable by keyword, author, and county. Topical sections are subdivided into relevant themes and include an introductory essay. Visitors will find essays on territorial politics, the rights of women and African Americans, military organizations, and free state and pro-slavery organizations. "Personalities" lists 32 individuals, including John Calhoun, and the final section presents both anti-slavery and pro-slavery perspectives of the national debate about Kansas. The site also includes a timeline with links and an annotated bibliography.

This scanned and partially searchable version of the 15-volume Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, from April 1636 to October 1776, was originally published between 1850 and 1890. Users can search documents by date, volume, and page number. Each of the 15 volumes, covering consecutive time periods, includes alphabetical, hyperlinked subject terms for browsing. The site also provides access by type of material: charters, documents, inventories, laws, letters, and court proceedings. Keyword searching may be available in the future, but even without this option, the site offers a wealth of accessible material on politics, legal matters, Indian affairs, military actions, social concerns, agriculture, religion, and other aspects of early Connecticut history.

In 1939, John Lomax, Curator of the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song, and his wife Ruby Terrill Lomax, embarked on a 6,500-mile journey through the South. During their travels, they recorded more than 700 folk tunes that now are available as audio files on this website. Genres include ballads, blues, children's songs, cowboy songs, fiddle tunes, field hollers, lullabies, play-party songs, spirituals, and work songs.

The site also presents field notes containing personal information on some of the more than 300 performers the Lomaxes recorded, notes on geography and culture, and excerpts from correspondence. More than 50 letters to and from the Lomaxes, 380 photographs, a bibliography of 22 works, and a map are also offered. The site is keyword searchable and can be browsed by subject as well as title, song text, and performer.

These two collections illuminate life on the Great Plains from 1862 to 1912. The nearly 3,500 glass plate negatives depict everyday life in central Nebraska, with images of businesses, farms, people, churches, and fairs in four counties. Approximately 318 letters describe the sojourn of the Uriah Oblinger family through Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, and Missouri as they traveled to establish a homestead. Letters discuss such topics as land, work, neighbors, crops, religious meetings, grasshoppers, financial troubles, and Nebraska's Easter Blizzard of 1873.

A 1,000-word essay describes the letter collection and the lives of the principal correspondents. Biographical notes are available for more than 120 of the people who corresponded with the Oblingers or who were mentioned in the letters.

A wealth of documents and analytical essays emphasize the social history of Plymouth Colony from 1620 to 1691. This website also offers a tribute to the scholarly work of the late James Deetz, professor of historical archaeology. Documents include 135 probates, 24 wills, and 14 texts containing laws and court cases on land division, master-servant relations, sexual misconduct, and disputes involving Native Americans.

The site also provides more than 90 biographical studies, research papers, and topical articles that analyze "life ways" of 395 individuals who lived in the colony and offer theoretical views on the colony's legal structure, gender roles, vernacular house forms, and domestic violence. There are 25 maps or plans, approximately 50 photographs, and excerpts from Deetz's books on the history and myths of Plymouth Colony and on Anglo-American gravestone styles.

This website documents the 1704 raid on Deerfield, MA, by 300 French and their Native American allies. Visitors are introduced to the raid by a multimedia exhibit that describes white settlement patterns that led to profound cross-cultural tensions.

Explanations includes 15 short essays that provide historical background. "Voices and Songs" provides audio commentary for the 300th anniversary of the raid, three audio versions of Native American creation stories, and 17th- and 18th-century music. Meet the Five Cultures includes brief introductions to the English, French, Mohawk, Huron, and Wobanaki.

Twenty-eight individual biographies include Native Americans, French, and English settlers. Fourteen maps depict Native American territories and the areas involved. After viewing the evidence, visitors are asked to decide whether the raid was part of a larger pattern of cross-cultural violence or an aberration.

Diaries documenting the westward treks of 45 men and four women during the period of the California Gold Rush and the westward migration of Mormonism are presented in this site. Although most of these travelers took either the California or Mormon trails, a few diaries provide accounts describing life on trails to Oregon and Montana.

The diaries are complemented by 82 photographs and illustrations in addition to 43 maps, including an interactive map displaying trails, cities, rivers, and landmarks. There are seven published guides, two essays on the Mormon and California trails, brief biographies of most of the diarists, and a list of suggested readings. This is an excellent collection of materials that documents 49 individual perspectives on a movement that encompassed an estimated 500,000 people.

This is a good place to begin exploring the history of Jamestown. The site includes over 60 letters and firsthand accounts from 1570 to 1720 on voyages, settlements, Bacon's Rebellion, and early history. More than 100 public records, such as census data and laws; 55 maps and images; and a registry of servants sent to plantations from 1654 to 1686 complete the site.

Virtual Jamestown also includes records from 1607 to 1815 of Christ's Hospital in England, where orphans were trained to apprentice in the colonies. There are four interactive virtual recreations. The reference section includes a timeline from 1502 to the present, narratives by prominent historians, links to 20 related sites, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The Complete Works of John Smith and John Smith's Map of Virginia have recently been added to the site, while 3D recreations of Jamestown's Statehouse and Meetinghouse as well as an archive of Virginia's first Africans are being added.

During the New Deal and World War II, a period marked by the impulse to capture in writing, sounds, and images significant aspects of American life and traditions, government photographers with the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI) took hundreds of thousands of pictures. This website features more than 150,000 photographs from this project. The photographs document the ravages of the Great Depression, scenes of everyday life in small towns and cities, and mobilization campaigns for World War II.

This site also includes approximately 1,600 color photographs and selections from two popular collections: "'Migrant Mother' Photographs" and "Photographs of Signs Enforcing Racial Discrimination." The site also provides a bibliography, a background essay, portrait samples of 18 FSA-OWI photographers, and links to five related sites. This is a great source for studying the documentary expression of the 1930s and 1940s.