These materials—early motion pictures from 1891 to 1918, 81 sound recordings from 1913 to 1920, and related materials, such as photographs and original magazine articles—document Thomas Edison's impact on the history of American entertainment. Edison's inventions included the phonograph, the kinetograph motion picture camera, and the kinetoscope motion picture viewer.

Sound recordings are accessible by title and according to six genres: instrumental selections, popular vocals, spoken word, spoken comedy, foreign language and ethnic recordings, and opera and concert recordings. Films are organized by title, chronologically, and according to genres, including actualities (nonfiction films), advertising, animation, drama and adventure, experimental, humorous, trick, and reenactments. Actuality subjects include disasters, expositions, famous people, foreign places, the navy, police and fire departments, railroads, scenic America, sports and leisure, the variety stage, and war. Special pages focus on the life of the inventor and his contribution to motion picture and sound recording technologies.

Records on the more than 25 million passengers and ship crew members who passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924 are available through this website. Most passengers came from Europe and Russia, although there are some records from Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

The website requires a free, simple registration to view detailed records that include name, residence, date of arrival, age on arrival, ethnicity, place of residence, marital status, ship of travel, place of departure, and a copy of the original ship manifest (a transcription is also available). The website includes extensive contextual information about Ellis Island, immigration, and genealogical research. "Family Histories" illuminates the genealogical research experiences of six Americans of diverse ethnic backgrounds.

The "Peopling of America" exhibit covers six periods from pre-1790 to 2000, with graphs, photographs, and immigration statistics geared to place of origin. Additional information is available for an annual fee.

P. T. Barnum's American Museum burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1865 after nearly a quarter century of patronage. The original museum tried both to entertain and educate with exhibits on natural history, American history, and reform efforts along with attractions of a sensational nature. With the exception of African Americans, who were barred from entry until the Civil War, New Yorkers of diverse ethnic, gender, and class identities mingled in the museum's shared cultural space.

Visitors to this website can explore an interactive 3D recreation of the museum or an archive of images, documents, accounts, and essays on 16 original Barnum exhibits, including the Fejee mermaid; Joice Heth, a former slave advertised as George Washington's nursemaid; "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind; John Brown; Jefferson Davis; the Lincoln assassination; the Civil War in New York; and phrenology. The website allows visitors to immerse themselves in the popular culture of Barnum's era.

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established by the War Department in 1865 to supervise all relief and education activities for refugees and freedmen after the Civil War. The Bureau was responsible for issuing rations, clothing, and medicine, and had custody of confiscated lands in the former Confederate states and other designated territories. This website contains an extensive collection of Freedmen's Bureau records and reports.

Included are more than 100 transcriptions of reports on murders, riots, and "outrages" (any criminal offense) that occurred in the former Confederate states from 1865 to 1868. There are also 30 links to records and indexes of labor contracts between freedmen and planters between 1865 and 1872; seven links to related sites; six links to marriage records of freedmen, 1861–1872; and more than 100 miscellaneous state record items concerning freedmen.

This collection of approximately 152,000 documents written by or to George Washington is the largest set of original Washington documents in the world. It includes correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, journals, account books, military records, reports, and notes from 1741 through 1799. Although the site is searchable by keyword, many documents are available only as page images rather than as transcribed text and the handwriting can be difficult to read. Transcripts, however, do exist for all diary pages and for selected documents.

The site includes a timeline with links to relevant documents; essays on Washington's diaries, letterbooks, and career as a surveyor and mapmaker; and an essay entitled "Creating the American Nation."

Offering 16 separate databases of digitized materials, this website provides firsthand accounts (diaries, letters, and memoirs) and literary efforts (poetry, drama, and fiction). Twelve databases pertain to American history and culture.

"Early Encounters in North America: Peoples, Cultures, and the Environment" offers primary sources documenting cultural interactions from 1534 to 1850. "The American Civil War: Letters and Diaries" draws on more than 400 sources and supplies a day-by-day chronology with links to documents. "Black Thought and Culture" furnishes monographs, speeches, essays, articles, and interviews. "North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries, and Oral Histories" covers 1840 to the present. "North American Women's Letters and Diaries: Colonial to 1950" provides full-text letters and diaries from more than 1,000 women—totaling more than 21,000 documents and approximately 120,000 pages—written between 1675 and 1950.

Five databases present American literary writings: "Latino Literature"; "Black Drama"; "Asian American Drama"; "North American Women's Drama"; and "American Film Scripts Online." In addition, "Oral History Online" provides a reference work with links to texts, audio, and video files. While the databases include previously published documents, many also contain thousands of pages of unpublished material. In addition to keyword searching, the databases provide "semantic indexing"—extensive categorical search capabilities.

A cooperative effort, this online repository presents 100 milestone documents in American history. The first document is the Richard Henry Lee Resolution of June 7, 1776, proposing independence for the American colonies. The last is the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In between, visitors will find Eli Whitney's 1794 cotton gin patent, the 1862 Pacific Railway Act, and the 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling.

Additional documents include the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Keating-Owen Child Labor Act of 1916, and orders and addresses by several presidents, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. There is a full-page scan and transcription of each document. In addition to the chronological list of 100 documents, the site includes a "People's Vote." Of the 100 documents, Americans voted the Declaration of Independence number one, followed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

These audio files, abstracts, transcriptions of oral arguments, and written opinions cover more than 3,300 Supreme Court cases. Materials include 3,000 hours of audio arguments in selected cases since 1955 and all cases since 1995. Users can access cases through keyword searches or a list of thirteen broad categories, such as civil rights, due process, first amendment, judicial power, privacy, and unions.

Cases include Roe v. Wade (abortion), Gideon v. Wainwright (right to counsel), Plessy v. Ferguson (segregation), Grutter v. Bollinger (affirmative action), and Bush v. Gore (election results). Biographies are provided for all Supreme Court justices and "The Pending Docket" provides briefs and additional materials on upcoming cases. The website also includes links to written opinions since 1893 and podcasts featuring discussions of cases starting in 1793.