Hard Hat Riots: An Online History Project

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Photo, Construction Workers with American Flag, New York Times
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A well-designed and innovative approach to teaching history, this site, designed by three PhD candidates at New York University, presents multifaceted perspectives on the May 8, 1970, attacks in New York City on Vietnam War protesters by hundreds of construction workers.

Users can enter the site by selecting any of 12 photographs, nine newspaper headlines, three places in the city where rioting occurred, or 10 summaries of views on the events and their meaning by historians and journalists. Selected items link to additional resources, including a police report and interviews with a student and a construction worker. The creators challenge users to fit the riots into wider contexts and to assess variant attempts at historical understanding.

Offers about a dozen suggested activities for high school and college teachers. Though limited in scope and quantity of material, this site is of great value to those studying social class in the Vietnam War era, labor history, and media influence in American life.

Flint Sit-Down Strike

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Photo, Genora Johnson with a very..., c. 1936-1937, Flint Sit-Down Strike
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This rich, multimedia resource provides an introduction to "the greatest strike in American history." The six-week occupation of the General Motors plant at Flint, Michigan, in 1936–37, was led by the recently-formed United Auto Workers. Using the new tactic of remaining in the plant rather than picketing outside, the strikers stopped production and won many demands.

The site begins with a short introductory essay and a small bibliography and webography. The three main sections—organization, strike, and aftermath—provide nearly 100 audio interviews recorded between 1978 and 1984 with former strikers recalling work conditions prior to the strike, experiences during the sit-in, the hostile reaction of Flint residents, the role of the Women's Auxiliary, and conditions following the strike. Each section includes a narrative essay. In addition the site presents slideshows, an audio timeline, and a Flash-generated strike map with textual and audio links.

Coal Mining in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

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Logo, Coal Mining in the Guilded Age and Progressive Era
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This collection about coal mining in the 19th century consists of 17 separate pages, mostly containing primary source material, produced between 1869 and 1904, about coal mining and mining disasters. Material includes a 600-word essay on the dangers of coal mining, an account of an 1869 cave-in, Stephen Crane's 1894 article, "In the Depths of a Coal Mine," eight photographs of coal miners from 1904, and a 30-page account of labor violence written by a Pinkerton agent in 1894.

A page about mining machinery offers four study questions for student visitors. The site will be useful for those studying 19th-century coal mining and labor issues.

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.