Maryland Historical Society Collections Online

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Painted tin hat shield, Maryland Historical Society, 1940.23.1
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The Maryland Historical Society owns millions of objects which could be key to bringing history to life for your class. A growing number of these items can be found in their digital collections.

The collections can be searched by title, creator, individual collection, or subject. At the time of writing, there are nine collections—the American Civil War; War of 1812; Paintings; African American History; Women's History; Mining the Museum (items on exhibit); Benjamin Henry Latrobe, an architect known for design the U.S. Capitol and the Baltimore Basilica; and works on paper. Artifacts include photographic images, engravings, broadsides, handwritten documents, a flag, a shadowbox, a knife, sketches, clothing, paintings, swords, a shield, a canteen, and more.

The original handwritten version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" may be of particular interest.

History: The National Park Service

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Logo, NPS History and Culture website
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Historical aspects of many of the 384 areas under the National Park Service's stewardship are presented in this expansive site. A "Links to the Past" section contains more than 25 text and picture presentations on such diverse history-related topics as archeology, architecture, cultural groups and landscapes, historic buildings, and military history. Of particular interest to teachers, a section entitled "Teaching with Historic Places" features more than 60 lesson plans designed "to enliven the teaching of history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects" by incorporating National Register of Historic Places into educational explorations of historic subjects. Examples include an early rice plantation in South Carolina; the lives of turn-of-the-century immigrant cigar makers near Tampa, Florida; a contrast between the Indianapolis headquarters of African-American businesswoman Madam C. J. Walker and a small store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, that grew into the J. C. Penney Company, the first nationwide department store chain; the Civil War Andersonville prisoner of war camp; President John F. Kennedy's birthplace; the Liberty Bell; Finnish log cabins in Iowa; and the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Saugus Iron Works. Especially useful for teachers interested in connecting the study of history with historic sites.

Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

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Image, Page from the journals, Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
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This well-designed site presents the Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton. The site provides the complete text of all the journals from the 1803–1806 expedition, as well as introductions, prefaces, and sources. The material is searchable by keyword and phrase.

There are 29 scholarly essays about the expedition. An image gallery offers 124 images of pages from the journals, 95 images of people and places, and 50 images of plants and animals encountered on the expedition. The maps section includes 12 explanatory maps and nine images of maps from the journals. Additionally, there are 27 audio excerpts of journal readings and eight video interviews with the editor of the project. The website stands as an outstanding resource for researching the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Hannah Arendt Papers

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Graphic, The Hannah Arendt Papers
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Due to copyright restrictions, only a small portion of the more than 25,000 digitized items from the Hannah Arendt papers can be viewed outside of three locations. Visitors who are not at the Library of Congress, New School University in New York City, or Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany, may, however, view almost all of the collection's documents relating to the Adolph Eichmann trial and Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Material in this collection includes correspondence with holocaust survivors, minutes of the trial, Arendt's notes, and positive and negative reviews of the book. About one quarter of Arendt's general correspondence from 1938 to 1975, arranged alphabetically by correspondent, is available. Visitors may access eight folders of notes, lectures, fiction, and poetry from the 1920s and 1940s and all of Arendt's appointment books from 1972 to 1975. All material is in facsimile, much of it in German. Most of a collection of lecture notes, correspondence with students, and royalty statements for Arendt's books from 1949 to 1975 is available offline. Nearly half of a collection of drafts of Arendt's books, On Revolution and Between Past and Future may also be accessed from any location. Although limited, the site will be interesting for research on Arendt, modern Europe, and philosophy.

Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution

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Photo, Sonia Pressman Fuentes receiving EOCP Award, Jewish Women and. . .
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This exhibit explores the contributions of Jewish women in Feminism's "Second Wave" during which Jewish women helped work "to transform American society and Jewish life in America." It offers a collection of images, a timeline, and six thematic essays. The interactive timeline using the exhibit images allows the visitor to follow the role of Jewish women in the resurgence of the feminist movement from the 1960s through the end of the 20th century. The thematic essays—"Foremothers," "From Silence to Voice," "Setting the Feminist Agenda," "The Personal is Political," "Feminism is Judaism," and "Confronting Power"—combine images, audio clips, and statements from prominent Jewish feminists, as well as short biographies of the feminists. The visitor can search the entire collection of more than 90 objects and stories from Jewish feminists used in the essays or browse the collection by person, format, topic, or date. A useful resource for researching Jewish women or the history of the feminist movement.

A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life

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Oil on canvas, Mary Olivia Lucas Harby. . . , c. 1830, A Portion of the People
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This exhibit tells "the story of Southern Jewish settlers and their descendants from the late 1600s through the 21st century." It currently consists of two presentations, each with more than 50 pages presenting an image from the exhibit's collection with accompanying explanatory text. Images include portraits, maps, historical documents, photographs of Jewish ritual books and religious and cultural objects, paintings and photographs of synagogues, and photographs of Jewish businesses. "First Families" explores the period from the 1600s to the 1820s through more than 50 images and "This Happy Land" explores the antebellum and Civil War years through more than 90 images. (The presentation "Pledging Allegiance," recounting the story of Jewish migration to the South in the first half of the 20th century, is under construction.) Visitors can listen to six interviews featuring voices from the past (transcripts are available). Additionally, a photographic essay with more than 40 photographs, "Palmetto Jews" by Bill Aron, examines Jewish life in South Carolina over the past 50 years. There is no site search capability.

Film Review: Iron Jawed Angels

Date Published
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glass negative, Alice Paul, Bain News Service, LOC
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Today, when it seems that everyone is getting a make-over, so are the suffragists. Iron Jawed Angels, a recent film by HBO, dramatizes the final years of the American woman suffrage movement, from 1912 to the winning of the vote in 1920. Historians familiar with the classic documentary One Woman, One Vote (1996) will be amused by how the suffragists have been updated and recast to mirror our own contemporary sensibilities. This film portrays these women as you have never seen them before: shopping for fashionable hats, smoking and lounging in their undergarments, and marching to a soundtrack of hip-hop rhythms. They are more than “new women”; they are 21st-century women in their casual manner, informal speech, and attitudes toward men and sexuality. With this approach, the film modernizes our political foremothers in an attempt to win new audiences in a postfeminist age.

The film modernizes our political foremothers in an attempt to win new audiences in a postfeminist age.

Tensions between veteran activists and “new suffragists” are at the heart of the story. Hilary Swank stars as the outspoken and determined Alice Paul, and Frances O'Connor plays her faithful comrade, Lucy Burns. The dynamic duo represents the more youthful, radical wing of the movement, which confronts the more conservative Carrie Chapman Catt (Anjelica Huston) and Anna Howard Shaw (Lois Smith), president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Allied with the Democratic party and the new president, Woodrow Wilson, Catt continues to support a gradual state-by-state campaign. She is portrayed as traditional, stuffy, and arrogant compared to the playful, optimistic, and impatient Paul who launches public demonstrations, supports a federal suffrage amendment, demands immediate results, and condemns the Democrats and Wilson, even in the midst of war. Paul and her allies eventually split with NAWSA to form a separate organization, the National Woman's Party. While historians have focused on the militant tactics of the new suffragists, the film fixates on their colorful personalities to separate them further from the old guard.

For an audience new to women's history, it conveys the very serious barriers to women's political participation and social justice.

Although the filmmakers try to reinvent the image of the suffragists, the storyline is based on the real troubles and triumphs of the campaign's final years. For an audience new to women's history, it conveys the very serious barriers to women's political participation and social justice. When the activists are physically attacked as they protest peacefully, the true hostility toward woman suffrage comes alive. The movie also contains a chilling portrayal of Paul's jail experience, showing her psychoanalyzed in the mental ward and violently force-fed after initiating a hunger strike. The film even acknowledges the racial tensions between white suffragists and African American activists, highlighting Paul's conflict with Ida B. Wells before the Washington, DC, parade in 1913. The film does take many liberties, however. For example, it overstates the influence of the radicals in winning the vote, downplaying the concerted effort of the entire suffrage spectrum and the impact of women's work and volunteerism during World War I. While historians have described Alice Paul as intellectually vigorous, personally conservative, and politically militant, the film transforms her into a spunky rebel who knows how to have fun but is still fully committed to her cause.

But this emphasis on beauty and charisma would surely disturb the suffragists, who would find these characters very foreign.

Is this what it takes to attract new audiences to women's history? In an age when many young women resist the feminist label, the film invites them to connect with feminists who are single, young, independent, sexually vibrant, and, of course, physically attractive. But this emphasis on beauty and charisma would surely disturb the suffragists, who would find these characters very foreign. This approach will also irritate historians of gender who have worked hard to define the suffragists as serious political actors and to integrate them into the American historical narrative. Viewed with a critical eye, Iron Jawed Angels could be useful for instructing students about history and popular culture, Hollywood and historical interpretation. It also forces us to grapple with more than feminism and its discontents. It can generate needed reflection on the ways historians can also be guilty of constructing historical personalities as they want to see them, by ignoring issues of race or dismissing the personal failures of our subjects. The challenge, then, remains to promote interest in women's history and still teach about who we think the suffragists were, rather than who we want them to be.

Bibliography

This review was first published in the Journal of American History, 91:3 (2004): 1131–1132. Reprinted with permission from the Organization of American Historians (OAH).

Abigail Adams Birthplace

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The Abigail Adams Birthplace preserves the home in which Abigail Adams (1744-1818), First Lady, was born. Abigail married John Adams, second President of the United States, whom she considered her "dearest friend," in 1764. Adams often looked to his wife for political and intellectual advice and discussion. Abigail Adams promoted women's rights and was a staunch abolitionist. One of her sons, John Quincy Adams, would grow up to become the sixth President.

The site offers tours.

National Women's History Museum: Online Exhibits

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Poster, To Date Female Rebellion, 1895, Will R. Barnes, NYPL Digital Gallery
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Do not publish. Currently the exhibit presentation quality is not up to par. If that changes in the future, this node can be made public.

The National Women's History Museum is currently a web-based initiative, which plans to eventually become a Smithsonian affiliate. Their goal is to provide information on women's experience in and contribution to the entirety of U.S. history, moving past a narrow focus on suffrage.

At the time of writing, the website offers 20 digital exhibits. The available topics include Chinese American women, women in the Progressive Era, the creation of female political imagery and culture, pioneer female legislators (from every state), women in the Olympics, stories of motherhood, women spies, stamps featuring women, suffrage, women and education, the women of Jamestown, girls who had large-scale impact, women as film pioneers, African American women, women in the business of publication up through World War I, reform leaders, women in industrial labor positions, women during World War II, and women who have run for the office of President.

These exhibits offer short textual introductions to the subject at hand, enhanced with images and/or statistical data.

Salem Witch Trials: Documentary Archive and Transcription Project

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Image, Witchcraft at Salem Village, 1876, Salem Witch Trials
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This website presents a valuable collection of resources for examining the Salem Witch trials of 1692. There are full-text versions of the three-volume, verbatim Salem Witch trial transcripts, an extensive 17th-century narrative of the trials, and full-text pamphlets and excerpts of sermons by Cotton Mather, Robert Calef, and Thomas Maule. The site also offers four full-text rare books written in the late 17th and early 18th centuries about the witchcraft scare. Descriptions and images of key players in the trials are presented as well.

Access is provided to more than 500 documents from the collections of the Essex County Court Archives and the Essex Institute Collection, and roughly 100 primary documents housed in other archives. There are also seven maps of Salem and nearby villages. Basic information on the history of Salem/Danvers is complemented by eight related images and a brief description of 14 historical sites in Danvers.