Civil Rights Movement Veterans

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Photo, March to Montgomery, 1965
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This site celebrates the commitment and efforts of veterans of the Civil Rights Movement. Introduction provides an overview of the website and the Movement.

Veterans Roll Call provides biographies (in some cases, autobiographies) of more than 500 veterans. It includes dates of activity, organizational affiliation, states they worked in, home states, contact information, and personal essays (of lengths ranging from one sentence to full essays). In Memory records the names of men, women, and children killed during the Civil Rights Movement, as well as names of veterans who have died. The Speakers List lists men and women who are available to speak or answer email inquiries.

Photo Album features more than 15 photo essays on subjects including sit-ins, the Freedom Riders, and the March on Washington. Photo annotations link to more information on the events depicted. Other resources including Civil Rights Movement posters, album covers, and pins, as well as photographs organized by photographer.

History & Timeline lists events by year, from 1951 to 1968. Some events include short descriptions; all include recommendations for print and online resources on the events.

Articles gathers together more than 50 documents by Civil Rights Movement veterans, some contemporary to events and some written later. Visitors can also download samples of literacy tests from Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana and view segregation laws. Documents archives contemporary documents created by CORE, NAACP, SCLC, SNCC, SSOC, and other organizations. Documents include newsletters, maps, plans, reports, minutes, government reports, and more. Also see Letters from the Field for more than 40 letters by Civil Rights Movement participants.

Our Stories includes interviews, stories, and other recollections from more than 80 veterans, while Our Thoughts includes more than 40 retrospective articles by veterans. Discussions preserves more than 20 online and transcribed discussions looking back on the Civil Rights Movement (most are modern, but they also include a 1956 discussion with Rosa Parks).

In addition, the website includes poetry by veterans, related links organized by topic, and a bibliography featuring age-specific book lists.

With the interviews, autobiographies, photos, documents, and discussions, the site includes a wealth of primary sources, and would be invaluable for any student researching the human side of the Civil Rights Movement.

War Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946

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Photo, Transportation, 1942
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Note: Unpublished because annotation does not seem to match website. Larger parent website also already covered at http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/website-reviews/23319.

This exhibit by an art student begins with 11 color postcard-like recreations of original black-and-white photographs documenting life in the Poston (AZ) War Relocation Center, where more than 17,000 Japanese-Americans were interned between 1942 and 1945 by the U.S. military. An accompanying essay provides background information and a brochure describes the Poston Monument. In addition, viewers can access six pages from "an Internment Camp's High School Yearbook," and additional legal documents, memoirs, newspaper and journal articles, a timeline, and book excerpts through links to 26 related documents and 40 websites. An important site on the internment experience.

Eugenics Archive

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Image for Eugenics Archive
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The history of the eugenics movement in the United States, from its inception in the decades following the Civil War through its height in the first few decades of the 20th century, is traced on this website. As we move into the age of genetics, this movement, that sought to filter "bad" traits from the human population, becomes increasingly important to understand.

The movement's history is told through a narrative divided into eight themes, including social and scientific origins, research methods and traits studied, flaws in these methods, ways in which the movement was popularized, immigration restriction, and marriage and sterilization laws. Each narrative is accompanied by roughly 10 primary sources—reports, articles, charts, legal documents, and photographs. These materials provide a succinct introduction to eugenics in the U.S.

In addition to the narratives, visitors can search or browse the Image Archive, featuring more than 2,000 primary sources, including documents, artwork, photographs, and more. Visitors may browse by topic, object type, time period, or the archive sources' originals are held by, or search by keyword or ID number. Note that primary sources cannot be downloaded from the Flash version of the Archive, though they can be from the HTML version of the site.

Women of Protest: Images from the Records of the National Woman's Party

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Photo, Lucy Burns in Occoquan. . . , Harris and Ewing, 1917, Women of Protest
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This combined archive and exhibit offers a selection of 448 photographs from the Library's National Woman's Party (NWP) collection that "document the National Woman's Party's push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment." Photographs span the years 1875 to 1938, but most date from 1913 to 1922. Visitors can browse photographs by title or subject or search the descriptive information. The site has a photo gallery of more than 50 photographs depicting NWP activists who were arrested and imprisoned for their role in suffrage protests. Additionally, the site provides a timeline of the National Woman's Party from 1912 to 1997 that places it in historical context. The site also provides three essays: on the tactics and techniques of the National Woman's Party suffrage campaign, a historical overview of the NWP, and on leaders of the NWP.

Austin Treasures: Online Exhibits from the Austin History Center

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Photo, Elnora Douglass
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A collection of 10 exhibits documenting aspects of the local history of Austin, TX. Each exhibit contains approximately 40 images and essays from 1,000 to 3,000 words in length. Topics include working in the city, the suffrage movement, life in the city during World War II, Victorian houses, city streets, the erection of the state capital building, landscaping, the historic suburban Hyde Park area, and memorable "firsts" in Austin.

The site links to the main local history site for the Austin Public Library—the Austin History Center—which provides a 2,400-word student essay on Austin's growth during its first 100 years, a chronology of the city from 1830–1900, and links to other relevant sites, including one presenting hundreds of historic postcards of the city. Useful for those studying Texas, urban, and western history.

Interpreting the Declaration of Independence by Translation

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Logo, Interpreting the Declaration of Independence by Translation
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The complex practice of translating historical documents is explored in this site that provides 11 historical translations of the American Declaration of Independence into Behasa Melayu (Malay language), French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish, along with 16 essays (2,500 to 10,000 words) that discuss these and other translations. The site reproduces a Journal of American History roundtable, published in March 1999, and includes introductory essays that discuss the endeavor of placing American history into a transnational perspective. Of great interest are five "'naive' retranslations back into English so that those who don't know the different languages can get a sense of how some key concepts and words have been rendered." This site is of great value not only for those interested in the new field of translation studies, but for all historians and students concerned with the importance of linguistic issues for historical interpretation.

Freedom Trail Foundation

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Detail, home page
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Dedicated in 1958 and now host to thousands of tourists annually, Boston's Freedom Trail links together 16 historic sites from the Revolutionary War era on a 2.5-mile red brick walking trail. This website provides a virtual tour of these sites and other resources devoted to visiting and teaching about the Freedom Trail.

Users may want to begin by downloading the detailed map of the Freedom Trail, and then, with that in hand, visiting the website's "Visit the Freedom Trail" section, which provides images and descriptions of the Trail's 16 sites, including the Boston Common, King's Chapel, Old South Meeting House, and the Old North Church, the oldest standing church building in Boston, and where church sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns on April 18, 1775, to signal the advance of the British up the Charles River. Additional biographical information is provided for 30 18th-century citizens from all walks of life affected by the events of the Revolutionary War in Boston.

Educators may be interested in the website's teaching materials, including articles on teaching aspects of the Revolutionary era, as well as information on visiting the Trail with students and booking in-school history education programs geared towards students in the upper elementary grades.

Documents from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention

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Image, "The. . . Colonies Declared. . . ," William Hamilton, 1783, LoC
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These 274 sources focus on the work of the Continental Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution, including manuscript annotations. The collection includes extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions, proclamations, committee reports, and treaties. In addition, there are documents relating to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, extracts of proceedings of state assemblies and conventions relating to the ratification of the Constitution, several essays on the ratification of the Constitution, and early printed versions of the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

There are 253 titles dating from 1774 to 1788 relating to the Constitutional Congress and 21 dating from 1786 to 1789 relating to the Constitutional Convention. Two timelines cover the period 1764 to 1789 and an essay entitled "To Form a More Perfect Union" provides historical context for the documents through an overview of the main events of the era of the Revolution.

Coming of the American Revolution, 1764-1776

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Detail, The Boston-Gazette, and Country Journal, Number 779
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A well-designed introduction to the major political events in Massachusetts that preceded and coincided with the beginning of the American Revolution. This website provides a series of 15 essays on the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Sons of Liberty, the Townshend Acts, boycotts, the Boston Massacre, the Committees of Correspondence, the Tea Party, the Coercive Acts, the First Continental Congress, Lexington and Concord, the Second Continental Congress, the Battle of Bunker Hill, George Washington, and the Declaration of Independence.

Each of these essays is keyed to a selection of the site's more than 150 primary documents—letters, newspaper articles, government acts, broadsides and more—that are available in high-resolution scanned versions on the site. The essay on the Declaration of Independence, for example, links to images of the various drafts of the document, as well as letters between John and Abigail Adams exalting over the Declaration.

The website also has brief biographies of the political actors in the historical drama that was unfolding. In addition, the website has a section that approaches the same material with lesson plans and curriculum objectives appropriate for the use of American history teachers. A short orientation for students is also included.

Charters of Freedom

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Declaration of Independence, NARA
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Featuring the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, this exhibit presents these three founding documents and several interactive tools for exploring them and their historical context. A transcription of the Declaration of Independence, for example, is accompanied by images of the original document and the 1823 William J. Stone engraving on this site. Three related documents—the Virginia Declaration of Rights and two scholarly articles—(approximately 8,000 words each) provide further context. One article details the history of the Declaration and includes a bibliography of eight titles while the other examines its language and "stylistic artistry."

Examine documents and events related to the making of the charters and then explore the larger impact of these documents from the 18th century to the present.