Child Labor in America, 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine

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Image for Child Labor in America, 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine
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Furnishes 64 photographs taken by Lewis W. Hine (1874–1940) between 1908 and 1912. Images document American children working in mills, mines, streets, and factories, and as "newsies," seafood workers, fruit pickers, and salesmen. The website also includes photographs of immigrant families and children's "pastimes and vices."

Original captions by Hine—one of the most influential photographers in American history—call attention to exploitative and unhealthy conditions for laboring children. A background essay introduces Hine and the history of child labor in the United States. This is a valuable collection for studying documentary photography, urban history, labor history, and the social history of the Progressive era.

Bisbee Deportation of 1917

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Logo, Bisbee Deportation of 1917
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In 1917, a labor dispute between copper mining companies and workers in Bisbee, Arizona, escalated into vigilante action against suspected members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). This site provides primary and secondary sources on the strike and subsequent deportation of over 1000 striking miners from Bisbee. It offers a roughly 500-word essay on the incident's historical context, and provides online access to materials such as personal narratives, witness interviews, government reports, newspaper articles, correspondence, and images selected from the University of Arizona Library, the Arizona Historical Society, and the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, Arizona. There are 26 mining and deportation photographs, three maps, 19 IWW publications with color images of the covers, and six images of IWW stickers on the site, along with a bibliography of 34 scholarly works, 11 of which offer links to online, full-text versions. The site provides a partial finding aid that lists items with links to the document texts featured on the site. The site is ideal for studying labor action and labor/management relations in the early 20th century.

Inside an American Factory: Films of the Westinghouse Works, 1904

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Photo, Westinghouse Works factory
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This exhibit includes 21 "actuality" films from the Library's Westinghouse Works Collection. Actuality films were motion pictures that were produced on flip cards, also known as mutoscopes. These films, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1904, were intended to showcase the company's operations and feature the Westinghouse Air Brake Company, the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and the Westinghouse Machine Company. They were shown daily in the Westinghouse Auditorium at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Brief (roughly 500-word) descriptive narratives accompany each film, along with three to five photographs of factory exteriors and interiors and male and female workers performing their duties. A timeline traces the history of the Westinghouse companies from the birth of founder George Westinghouse in 1846 to Westinghouse's last patent, awarded four years after his death in 1918. Another link offers a Wilmerding News article, dated September 2, 1904, about life in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania, "the ideal home town," where the Westinghouse Air Brake factory was located. A bibliography of 18 scholarly works on Westinghouse and manufacturing in America is also included. The easily-navigable site is keyword searchable and can be browsed by subject. It is a good resource for information on labor and manufacturing in early 20th-century America, as well as on early film.

NOVA: Einstein's Big Idea

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Photo, Einstein and Picasso, NOVA: Einstein's Big Idea
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This companion website to a PBS NOVA documentary contains information about Einstein and his theory of relativity, as well as several special features. The site offers a timeline of Einstein's life from his birth in 1879 to his death in 1955, a short essay on his life before his great discovery in 1905, and an explanation of the theory behind the equation. Special features include: an essay on the legacy of Einstein's theories of special relativity and general relativity and how they affect our world; a feature exploring time dilation as predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity; and an audio feature in which 10 top physicists briefly describe Einstein's equatio. The site also offers two teacher guides: "Einstein's Big Idea" and "Einstein Revealed," 10 links to related websites, and a bibliography of eight books. Though it contains no primary source material, this site should be useful for science teachers and high school students studying Einstein, physics, and the history of science.

Diary, Correspondence, and Papers of Robert "King" Carter, 1701-1732

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Image, Robert Carter, Diary, Correspondence, and Papers of Robert..., 1701-1732
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A work-in-progress, this collection offers letters and diary entries by Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732), a wealthy landowner and leading public figure in Virginia. Educated in England, Carter inherited and acquired more than 300,000 acres in the Northern Neck Proprietary between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. Carter, who owned nearly 1,000 slaves, served as a member of the Council of Virginia and as acting governor of the colony.

The site presently contains transcripts of all existing Robert Carter texts, including approximately 800 letters, written between 1701 and 1727, diary entries covering 1722–1726, and wills. Each document provides both modern and original spellings, and hyperlinked notes offering identifying information for more than 130 persons, places, and things. A 2,200-word biography of Carter, a 2,100-word essay on the Northern Neck Proprietary, and a bibliography of nearly 80 titles are also available.

Bill of Rights Institute

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Screenshot, Bill of Rights Institute home page
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The Constitution is a classroom (and U.S. ideological) staple. As the platform from which U.S. history shapes itself, it is crucial that your students understand the Founding Fathers and their documents. The Bill of Rights Institute exists to help educators present this material.

The website brings together a variety of resources from introductions to and copies of primary source documents to a wide selection of resources specifically for educators. The latter includes Constitution Day resources such as an interactive game on living without the Bill of Rights, another that provides interesting background information on all of America's infamous founding figures, and an essay contest. Browsing through the educator resources also brings to light lesson plans, Bill of Rights-related current news articles which have been selected for classroom appropriateness, information on 24 of the Founding Fathers, summaries of major Supreme Court cases, and the ability to search the site by choosing a major topic such as "criminal procedure."

The student resources are largely the same as the Constitution Day resources, although links are provided to a number of relevant videos and an "Americapedia," which identifies and describes civic values, portions of the Constitution, major political documents, major Supreme Court Cases, and names to know.

Educators may also be interested in seminars and webinars. Two previous webinars are available online.

Advertising World

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Logo, University of Texas at Austin, Texas Advertising and Public Relations
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A gateway of links for advertising and marketing professionals, and for students and teachers of marketing communications and related fields. Organized alphabetically into 83 topics, from "Account Planning" to "Word of Mouth." A "History & Museums" section provides 22 links to sites that present past ads and commercials, or deal with the history of advertising and consumer culture. The "Research Center" includes a 167-title bibliography of books on advertising and links to bibliographies on 21 related subjects, including advertising history; two "White Papers" of approximately 12,000 words each on the future of advertising and advertising education; links to 23 advertising-related essays, some of which are on historical topics; and links to more than 40 professional and academic journals on advertising, economics, and sociology. Billed as "the ultimate marketing communications directory," this site will be valuable to students of advertising and its history.

Godey's Lady's Book Online

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Cover Image, Godey's Lady's Book
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Provides three full issues—July, August, September 1855—of one of the most popular 19th century publications, Godey's Lady's Book. Each issue includes poetry, engravings, and articles, as well as a section on Victorian fashion. In addition to these full issues, the site also includes a Samples Collection, which features selections from the Book during the years 1855-1858. These samples are divided into six main categories, each of which is further broken down to make the content more accessible. Overall, this is a useful resource for teachers and students interested in aspects of Victorian popular culture.

Musicians Local No. 627 and the Mutual Musicians Foundation

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Photo, Singing Novelty Orchestra, c. 1920s, Musicians Local. . . site
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Kansas City's Local 627, one of several African American musicians' unions affiliated with the American Federation of Musicians, was founded in 1917. This website traces its history over the course of the 20th century. This history is divided into nine chronological sections, including introduction to the roots of Kansas City jazz style, early jazz bands, bigger bands and a new headquarters for the organization, jazz during World War II, the thriving music scene in the 1950s, the merger with Local 34, and the efforts of the Mutual Musicians Foundation to promote jazz in the 1960s and 1970s.

Upon entering each section, visitors are greeted by a video presentation of photographs of prominent Kansas City musicians and newspaper articles documenting their accomplishments, accompanied by a jazz soundtrack. In addition to explanatory text introducing musicians and prominent events in Kansas City history, each section also includes roughly 20 photographs, as well as a few songs of the era, which can be listened to using RealPlayer. Useful for those interested in Kansas City history or in U.S. music culture in the 20th century more generally.

Data & Information Services Center: Online Data Archive

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Logo, Online Data Archive
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Provides 43 social science statistical data studies on a variety of topics. Created as a service to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the site includes 12 studies dealing with Wisconsin-related topics, 14 additional studies on American subjects, and 15 studies dealing with general or international matters. Subjects pertaining to American history include Slave Movement during the 18th and 19th Centuries; Irish immigrants in Boston in 1847 and 1848; Characteristics of Census Tracts in Nine U.S. Cities, 1940-1960; the growth, consumption habits, and finances of American families in the 1950s and 1960s; financial characteristics of consumers in the early 1960s; premarital sexuality in 1973; Dynamics of Idealism: Volunteers for Civil Rights, 1965-1982; urban racial disorders of the 1960s; class characteristics of U.S. Council of Foreign Relations members, 1922-1969; and the role of the American family in the transmission and maintenance of socioeconomic inequality. (See separate "History Matters" entries for above-listed hyperlinked sites.) Valuable for those studying American social history, especially in the Cold War period.