In September 1901, President William McKinley was attacked while visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He eventually died of his wounds. This Library of Congress American Memory site features 28 films, drawn from the Paper Print Collection of the Library's Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, depicting scenes from the Exposition and McKinley's visit to Buffalo. Produced by the Edison Manufacturing Company from March to November, 1901, the films include footage of President McKinley at his second inauguration; the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo; President McKinley at the Exposition; and McKinley's funeral. The site also includes a roughly 500-word introductory essay about the exposition and McKinley's assassination; a 1000-word essay describing America at the turn of the 20th century; a 250-word introduction to the Library's Paper Print Collection; a 23-work selected bibliography on McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition; and a 15-work bibliography on the history of motion pictures. A "Learn More About It" page lists seven other Library of Congress special presentations and related collections and exhibits for those interested in further exploring the era. There is an alphabetical listing of the films, as well as a keyword search engine. Though the online exhibit is limited in scope and nature of sources, it is a good resource for those interested in early-20th-century expositions, American presidents, and William McKinley.

This site incorporates 679 excerpts from original sound recordings and more than 1200 photographs from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-1999). These materials document traditional uses of mountains in southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley as common land for hunting, gardening, mining, and timbering. It includes interviews on native forest species, traditional harvesting, storytelling, river baptisms, and other special occasions celebrated in the valley's commons. Forty brief (approximately 500-word) interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, and cultural contexts of community life in the valley; eight maps and more than 150 photographs illustrate these community activities. Captions (roughly 25-word) describe the more than 1200 images contained on the site, which is keyword searchable and browsable by subject, geographic location, photograph title, and audio title. This site would be of interest to those researching rural American life and folkways.

Yet another fine production from the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, this site was created to celebrate the centennial of composer Aaron Copland's birth. The site offers a selection of over 1000 items and 5000 images drawn from over 400,000 items in the Copland Collection of the Library's Music Division. Items in the online exhibit include music sketches, correspondence, writings, and photographs spanning 1899-1981, but primarily drawn from the 1920s to 1950s. In addition to these items the site also includes a roughly 3000-word essay on Copland's life and works with 12 photographs of Copland and a timeline of the artist's life and accomplishments from his birth in 1900 to his death in 1990. Leonard Bernstein's 1000-word article on Copland from the 1970 High Fidelity/Musical America issue and five 300-word tributes to Copland on his 75th birthday, published in the 1975 Schwann-1 Record and Tape Guide are also included. Visitors may search the site by keyword or browse alphabetical listings of musical sketches, writings, correspondence, photographs, titles, and works. This is a useful site for students and teachers interested in the history of American music and the lives of American composers.

More than 240 items dealing with African-American history from collections of the Library of Congress, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. The exhibition explores black America's quest for political, social, and economic equality from slavery through the mid-20th century. Organized into nine chronological periods covering the following topics: slavery; free blacks in the antebellum period; antislavery movements; the Civil War and African-American participation in the military; Reconstruction political struggles, black exodus from the South, and activism in the black church; the "Booker T. Washington era" of progress in the creation of educational and political institutions during a period of violent backlash; World War I and the postwar period, including the rise of the Harlem Renaissance; the Depression, New Deal, and World War II; and the Civil Rights era. Each section includes a 500-word overview and annotations of 100 words in length for each object displayed. In addition to documenting the struggle for freedom and civil rights, the exhibit includes celebratory material on contributions of artists, writers, performers, and sports figures. Valuable for students and teachers looking for a well-written and documented guide for exploring African-American history.

An archive of nearly 300 images and approximately 500 text files relating to the post-WWI Red Scare, created by Robert Leo Klein, the Web Coordinator and Digital Resources Developer at the William and Anita Newman Library, Baruch College, CUNY. The weekly compendium, The Literary Digest, constitutes "the primary source of material for this database." Klein notes, in describing his site, that "because the anti-red hysteria was so emblematic of the time" "we use it in the context of this database as a short-hand way of expressing the whole period." Whether or not this interpretation succeeds, this site is an impressive source for first-hand documents. Users will find them organized chronologically, as well as by more than 100 subject headings. No background text is offered, but students curious about the history of antiradicalism will discover here a rewarding presentation.

In the 19th century the "Underground Railroad", a secret network of Northern abolitionists, guided hundreds of escaped slaves to Canada and freedom. This creative, interactive site places visitors in the shoes of a Maryland slave pondering escape to Canada in 1850. The visitor is allowed to choose whether to escape or remain enslaved; if they choose to escape they are led into one of the Underground Railroad escape routes through Wilmington, Delaware, and Philadelphia to Rochester, New York, and across Lake Erie into Canada. Along the way they are introduced to several prominent abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman, Quaker businessman Thomas Garrett, and escaped slave Frederick Douglass. Some of the stops along the escape route are accompanied by audio clips of African-American spirituals, bloodhounds in pursuit of escaped slaves, and the sound of a train. The site also includes a map of Underground Railroad routes; a timeline of African slavery in the New World from 1500 to 1865; and portraits and brief (100-word) biographies of 12 major figures in the Underground Railroad, such as Lucretia Mott, John Whittier, and William Still. A link to classroom ideas provides nine class projects for high school students. There are also links to seven related websites and a bibliography of 18 scholarly works. A forum allows visitors to post comments or questions about the Underground Railroad or the website, but because the forum link is not monitored or edited the discussion threads' usefulness is uneven. Though this innovative site contains no primary documents, it is an ideal beginning for students interested in slavery and abolition and for teachers seeking background and classroom project ideas on the Underground Railroad.

A selection of 84 portraits and 27 cartes de visite of prominent Americans photographed by Mathew Brady are exhibited here in a gallery and album. Visitors may also use an index of sitters to find photographs. A biographical timeline provides a sketch of Bradyí s life, a 200-word essay discusses his place in the art world of his time, and a 300-word essay describes his work during the Civil War. Portrait subjects include Daniel Webster, Clara Barton, Walt Whitman, and the actor Edwin Forrest in five different costumes. Cartes de visites present Jefferson Davis, Mary Todd Lincoln, and P.T. Barnum among others. In a glossary of ten photographic terms, visitors can read 50-100-word explanations of processes such as ambrotype and salt print. An 800-word essay with animated illustrations demonstrates the photographic process of Brady's time. The inclusion of these technical details makes this site particularly useful for research in the history of photography. May also be useful in discussing the history of celebrity.

This site contains transcripts, audio recordings, and edited stories from interviews, conducted in the spring of 1998 by sophomores at South Kingstown High School, with 31 Rhode Islanders about their recollections of the year 1968. These narratives, including references to the Vietnam War, Civil Rights movement, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as personal memories, are a living history of one of the most tumultuous years in United States history. The project includes a glossary, timeline, and bibliography of reference, as well as notes from the project coordinators about oral history in the classroom.

This is the companion to the PBS series, Vietnam: A Television History. David McCullough introduces the site with a 600-word essay on the war and 30-word program notes for each of the 11 episodes. Transcripts for each episode, from the "Roots of a War" to "The End of the Tunnel" are available. "Who's Who" provides photographs and profiles (50-100 words) of 41 major figures. The site provides a timeline from 1945 to 1997 including events leading up to the war, the war itself, and its results, as well as links to 50-word descriptions of events. A 600-word essay illustrated with four photographs describes Vietnam's recovery from the war. Among the 12 personal reflections of the war (300 to 900 words) provided here, visitors may read the memories of a Vietnamese-born American poet, a U.S. marine, a soldier who guarded the Ho Chi Minh trail, and a Red Cross aid worker. There are nine photographs and 3,000 words on equipment from fighter planes to boots and food. One essay (500 words) describes the My Lai massacre and another essay (1,600 words) discusses the continuing issue of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action. This site is easy to navigate and mixes the personal and global effectively, making it useful for research into the cultural history of war.