Korean American Digital Archive

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Thousands of primary materials, including documents compiled by Korean American organizations, personal papers, more than 1,900 photographs, and around 180 interviews, address the experiences of Koreans in the United States between 1903 and 1965 on this website. The materials run the gamut from organizational memos and other official documents to personal letters, wedding programs, birth certificates, and social security check stubs.

This material allows users to piece together the life histories of individual Korean Americans. They will find individuals like Soon Hyun, an activist in the Korean resistance movement against Japanese colonialism in 1919, who later moved to the United States and became a minister in Hawaii. Or Florence Ahn, a Korean American who became a prominent singer in Los Angeles. These personal biographies, in turn, allow users to examine the human dimension of the history of Asian Americans, and place individuals within a larger history.

Camping With the Sioux—Fieldwork Diary of Alice Cunningham Fletcher

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This site presents two fieldwork journals written by anthropologist Alice Cunningham Fletcher during her six-week stay with a group of Dakota Sioux women in 1881. The journals are indexed by date and can be searched or read as a narrative.

Visitors will find a 1,000-word biographical essay about Fletcher and a bibliography of sources, including three books, three Smithsonian collections of related materials, five collections of papers, and six links to sites about Sioux Indians and 19th-century anthropology of the Sioux. A gallery of 36 photographs contains pictures of Fletcher, her two travelling companions, scenes of Sioux life, and portraits of Sioux Indians, including Sitting Bull.

In her journals, Fletcher transcribed 14 folk tales related by her Sioux hosts. These tales are indexed by title and presented separately as well as in the journals. The site offers unique sources particularly useful for students of Native American history, women's history, and the history of anthropology and ethnography.

Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Rare Books c. 1820-1910

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This American Memory website traces the history of the Upper Midwest (Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) from the 17th century to the early 20th century, through 138 volumes drawn from the Library of Congress General Collection and the Rare Books and Special Collection Division. Selected works include first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, and colonial archival documents that depict the region's land and resources, cross-cultural encounters, experiences of pioneers and missionaries, soldiers, immigrants, reformers, growth of communities, and development of local culture and society. Each work is available in full-text transcription or page image, and is accompanied by notes giving the title, author, publication information, and a 300–350 word summary of the contents.

The site also offers a 2,000-word essay on the history of the Upper Midwest that covers the discovery, exploration, settlement, and development of the region from pre-contact to the early 20th century; a regional map dated 1873; links to more than 40 related websites; and a bibliography of nine related works, three of which are ideal for younger readers. The site can be searched by keyword and browsed by author, subject, and title. For those interested in the history of the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, this site offers some informative resources.

Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978-1996

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This colorful Library of Congress American Memory site brings together selected items from two American Folklife collections, the Blue Ridge Parkway Folklife Project Collection and the "All American Quilt Contest" series, sponsored by Good Housekeeping magazine and Coming Home, a division of the direct mail retailer Land's End.

The Blue Ridge Collection consists of 229 photographs and 181 interviews recorded in 1978 with six Virginia and North Carolina quiltmakers. These items illustrate the art of quiltmaking within the context of daily life in Appalachia. The Quilt Contest materials, from contests held in 1992, 1994, and 1996, include images of approximately 180 prize-winning quilts from across the U.S. The quilts represent a wide variety of styles, traditions, and materials used in the practice of the craft.

The exhibit is divided into three sections. Speaking of Quilts offers an essay (2,000 words) on the making of these two collections and the tradition of quiltmaking. Blue Ridge Quilts features the audio files of interviews and photographs of the six Appalachian quilters practicing their craft, along with a 500-word biography of each featured quiltmaker. Each audio clip is accompanied by brief (150-word) descriptive notes. The Quilt Contest section includes a roughly 2,000-word essay describing the contests and featuring a gallery of images of 180 prizewinning quilts.

The site offers a handy glossary of more than 50 terms and a selected bibliography of approximately 60 monographs and periodicals related to the history and craft of quiltmaking. It can be searched by keyword and browsed by quiltmakers and subjects. This beautiful site is useful for students researching American and Appalachian culture, not to mention those who simply love the art of quiltmaking.

Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns

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A companion for Jazz, the PBS documentary series, this site explores the origins and evolution of a distinctively American form of music.

The site is divided into three main sections. Places, Spaces, and Changing Faces offers information on some of the cities and clubs that contributed to the growth of jazz, from New York's Savoy Ballroom to New Orleans' Anderson's Annex. Jazz Lounge outlines basic musical features and characteristics of jazz rhythm and melody and describes seven major strains of jazz from New Orleans to Bebop. Jazz in Time features a generally chronological history of the changes in jazz from antebellum America through the Jim Crow period, the Depression, World War II, the sixties, and beyond and also provides a link to a history of women in jazz. Another link offers over 100 biographies of musicians.

Each entry includes a roughly 500-word essay that outlines the historical background, major figures in the shaping of jazz, and specific characteristics of the music in that section. The site contains close to 100 audio clips of music and interviews with historians and musicians who appeared in the documentary. About 20 of the interviews are also transcribed.

A virtual piano in the "Jazz Lounge" provides an interactive opportunity to learn about and practice basic jazz techniques. There is also a section about the making of the documentary that includes information on the show's producer, Ken Burns. This site is ideal for researching American cultural history and the history of American music.

The American Experience

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Visitors may browse these "website archives" to access the transcripts of 60 American Experience documentaries broadcast on PBS. In addition, the site offers transcribed interviews with the filmmakers, a timeline of events of each the of the film topic's era, and teaching guides.

Documentaries cover a wide range of topics including Harry Houdini, the Donner Party, the advent of television, and the Wright brothers. Primary source material includes pages from a colonial woman's diary, public documents from Truman's presidency, video clips of female pilots, and real audio files of three hobo songs. The site will be especially useful for teachers contemplating using films in the classroom.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online (1841-1902)

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The Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper was published from 1841 to 1955 and was revived for a short time from 1960 to 1963. This website covers the period from October 26, 1841, to December 31, 1902, representing half of the Eagle's years of publication.

Approximately 147,000 pages of newspaper, in various digital formats, are available. Access can be gained either by date of issue, keyword, or by eight subjects (African American history, Bridges, Crime, Draft Riot, Spanish American War, Women and Women's Suffrage, Arts and Entertainment, and Holidays). A timeline contains detailed information about the creation and development of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. For an overview, users can browse the newspaper in five-year increments.

National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center

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The highlight of the site is its Online Exhibitions section. There are currently 64 exhibits available. These include Separate is Not Equal, celebrating the 50 year anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision (including audio and video files); Bon Appetit, documenting chef Julia Child's kitchen and career (including panoramic views and virtual examination of Childs's kitchen tools); and West Point, marking 200 years of military academy training.

Parents and teachers may appreciate the Kids area with hands-on history and science. Less useful for research, this site would be most useful as a virtual visit to the Museum.

The Uses & Abuses of the Constitution

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Common-place: The Interactive Journal of Early American Life has released a special issue on the United States Constitution. It provides a roundtable discussion of several questions concerning the uses and abuses of the Constitution in contemporary American political affairs. The eight essays are divided into four sections: Electoral College, The Clinton Impeachment, The Second Amendment, and Women and the Constitution.

The Bush vs. Gore controversy is tackled by distinguished professor Rogers Smith, while other leading scholars such as Jack Rakove and Linda Kerber address the role of the Constitution in landmark cases, the Clinton impeachment, the gun control debate, and the rights of women. The essays are a readable length, between 2,500 and 3,500 words, and offer a "common-place" for academic and non-academic readers alike.

SDA: Survey Documentation and Analysis

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Within this site—designed primarily to aide social science researchers and analysts to construct large quantitative studies that can produce analytic results quickly—historians can find studies of importance relating to trends and shifts in American attitudes and opinions. The site presents 12 surveys on race and politics, Italian prejudice, health issues, and voter attitudes since 1952, among other topics.

Perhaps the most useful to historians of the late 20th century will be the General Social Survey, an "almost annual" study since 1972 that has interviewed U.S. households to produce a set of variables covering attitudes on an eclectic range of topics—from abortion to zodiac signs—that have been chosen by experts as "strategic for social science research" and related to public policy. Since 1982, surveys in other countries have replicated questions so that cross-national analyses may be achieved.

Includes data on beliefs concerning welfare, free speech, gun control, class structure, pornography, race, media exposure, working mothers, and women's rights, among other topics. Contains links to eight additional sites that use SDA. Valuable for those studying American social history.