19th-century Cincinnati, OH, an economically prosperous city and a "Gateway to the West," was a microcosm of the changes in domestic life occurring throughout the United States. This website uses music, commonly performed and appreciated in family parlors, to help users better understand these changes, as well as common social, economic, and religious values among Cincinnati's majority population of white Protestants. The 21 songs included are divided by theme: Family Life, Singing Schools, Religion, Rural Values, Temperance, Parlor Music, and Minstrel Songs. "You'll Never Miss the Water Till the Well Runs Dry" exemplifies some of the changes in family life, describing the lessons a young man learned from his mother, and then re-learned later for himself, about forging a successful life on his own.

Sheet music and an audio recording are provided for all songs, which are also accompanied by brief annotations. Two substantive, scholarly essays on "Life in 19th Century Cincinnati and "Understanding the Music," provide historical context. A bibliography and list of related Library of Congress websites provide opportunities for further exploration.

The Quilt Index gathers together images of quilts from historical societies and other institutions, as well as individual quilters, and information on both quilts themselves and the culture and skills of quilting.

The site search lets you specify details including the contributing institution, state and time period in which the piece was made, dominant colors, cultural or ethnic provenance of a quilt, or fabric type. The wide variety of options can make an initial glance at the search page intimidating, but it effectively allows a user to browse the collection according to his or her interests. Quilters may be more interested in pattern or fabric type, whereas history educators may wish to find local quilts from time periods past.

Additional subpages under the "Search" tab offer access to a number of quilting journals from the '70s through '90s, a means of searching ephemera (sketches, swatch collections, and more), and a lesson plan search feature. Searching for history lesson plans results in four hits as of January 30th, 2012 (Appalachian culture, interviewing a quilter, reading a quilt as a historical document, and quilt symbolism). Note that this, rather than the "Lesson Plans" tab, is the easiest way to reach lesson plans intended to be used in history curriculum.

Also worth exploring are essays and galleries. The latter consists of collections of quilts arranged by themes. Example themes include quilts and human rights, Texan quilts, and Amish quilts. In contrast, essays is text heavy. Here, site visitors can find text commentary on cultural significance, historical quilting, or regional or historical quilt characteristics, for example, as well as quilt-related poetry.

This is a large gateway website that organizes and links to more than 400 other websites that focus on African American history. These range from websites that offer collections of primary historical documents to websites useful to researchers in other ways, such as African American genealogical websites, and the websites of Historically Black Colleges, historical sites and museums, and various African American media outlets.

The website itself also contains a large amount of material—an online 1500-entry encyclopedia of people, places, and events in African American history; the texts of 125 speeches by African Americans; the texts of 100 court decisions, laws, and government documents that bear on the African American past; timelines of African American history; audio tapes from the 1963 Open Housing hearings in Seattle; and summary accounts of important events in African American history.

A companion to Ken Burns's film of the same name, Unforgivable Blackness provides an extensive look into issues surrounding race relations, sports, and definitions of freedom during the Progressive Era. In the documentary, Burns delves into the life of Jack Johnson, the first African American Heavy Weight Champion of the World. Johnson is explored as a man unapologetic for his strength, dominance, and defiance of society’s "rules."

This well-designed website has appeal for those teaching a variety of subject matter and content at the high school level. Background information is plentiful for those unfamiliar with early 20th-century boxing history, and sections are written at an appropriate Lexile level for high school use. Fight of the Century includes an interactive link filled with photographs, music, newspaper excerpts, political cartoons, and six audio clips (Flash Player required). Discussions of political cartoons and the depictions of African Americans during the early 1900s may be necessary before viewing Fight of the Century with students. Primary sources are plentiful throughout, including full text of the Mann Act, as well as Johnson’s FBI files.

Ghost in the House and Sparring provide information concerning four of Johnson’s contemporaries, including boxers Joe Louis and Sam Langford. Knockout also details Johnson's dalliances with a number of white women, which led to his conviction under the Mann Act. While important to the overall discussion of race relations, this section and coinciding discussions should only occur with more mature high school groups. An additional section, For Teachers, includes 10 lesson plans that may be used in a range of classroom settings—from math and civics, to history and sociology. Lesson plans are well thought out and descriptive, yet still leave room for open dialogue and connections with relatable current events. The website was last updated in 2005, which has resulted in a lost connection with three of the eight website links listed under the Resources section.

Overall, this website provides an in-depth and user-friendly overview for those interested in connecting issues of race relations and the Progressive Era into their classrooms.

This site is dedicated to the study of the life and legacy of Malcolm X. Only one of three "initiatives" is publicly available (Columbia faculty, staff, and students may also access the site's "multi-media study environment" section). "Oral histories," "outreach," and "Malcolm X biography project" are under construction. A chronology traces Malcolm's life from his birth in May 1925 to his assassination in February 1965, with short entries on major events. "Government Documents" offers FBI files on Malcolm X—4,000 pages of surveillance reports—covering the period 1954 to 1964. A brief summary accompanies each report and the files can be searched by keyword. The site's project journal, focusing on particular themes and issues, has seven articles on Malcolm X and eight weblog postings. Additionally, the site offers an e-seminar "Life after Death: Malcolm X and American Culture" by Columbia professor Dr. Manning Marble for a fee (available free to Columbia faculty, staff, and students). When this site is completed, it will be a good starting point for researching the ideas and life of Malcolm X.

In the early 20th century, Macon, Georgia's Douglass Theater was one of Georgia's primary entertainment venues for blacks outside of Atlanta. Over the course of its more than 60-year history, the theater featured famous vaudeville acts, singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, boxing matches, as well as both silent and talking films. This website features 100 documents from the files of the theater's owner, Charles Henry Douglass, a prominent black businessman in Macon. Letters, financial statements, contracts, theater newsletters, and advertisements shed light not only on events and business transactions at the Douglass Theater, but on the wider business community supporting African American theaters in the South. A good place to begin is the "Introduction to the Douglass Theater in Macon," a detailed background essay with links to a variety of documents from the collection, including account book pages detailing one week's profits in 1923, and a series of letters exchanged between the theater's temporary manager in the late 1920s and his brother documenting the challenges of the theater business. The materials are transcribed and annotated, and browseable by author, date, type, subject, and title.