Provides historical information and photographs pertaining to more than 300 surveying instruments used in America to delimit land and transport boundaries "since the first European colonists settled here some 400 years ago and turned the American landscape into property." Visitors may browse by 23 types of instruments—from alidades to zenith telescopes—and by 117 names of instrument makers. Informative texts on makers, types of instruments, and specific instruments run from one sentence to 300 words in length. Entries include bibliographic references. Of value for those studying the history of science and technology.

Provides approximately 1,350 life histories and youth studies created by the Virginia Writers' Project (VWP)—part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project—between October 1938 and May 1941. In addition, the site offers more than 50 interviews with ex-slaves conducted by the VWP's all-black Virginia Negro Studies unit in 1936 and 1937 and six VWP folklore studies produced between 1937 and 1942. The life histories—ranging between two and 16 pages in length—offer information on rural and urban occupational groups and experiences of individuals during the Depression, in addition to remembrances of late 19th-century and early 20th-century life. The youth studies investigate experiences of young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who left school and include a survey of urban black youth. The ex-slave narratives, selected from more than 300 that were conducted for the project—of which only one-half have survived—provided research for the 1940 WPA publication The Negro in Virginia.

Interviews and studies were edited—sometimes extensively—at the Richmond home office. Each study includes a bibliographic record with notes searchable by keyword; for many records, notes are structured to include searchable data on age, gender, race, nationality, industrial classification, and occupation. The site includes a 2,300-word overview of the project. Valuable for those studying social, economic, and cultural life in Virginia during the Depression, in addition to early periods, youth culture, and the history of slavery.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy's trip to South Africa in June 1966 to protest that country's system of apartheid and support efforts to combat it is amply documented on this site with texts, audio files, film clips, and photographs. The site provides texts of the five speeches delivered by Kennedy during the visit—for three of these, full audio files are provided. Also offers texts of 13 additional speeches—from South African students and political leaders, as well as American leaders—with six available in audio format. Background annotations of up to 100 words accompany all texts. A newspapers section on the press coverage of the visit provides nine articles from U.S. newspapers and 15 articles from South African newspapers. A magazines section provides seven articles about the visit, including a Look magazine article about the trip written by the senator; and a cartoon section highlights 12 political cartoons. The site also provides 13 related documents, and more sources can be found in the "Resources" section. These include the "Black Christ" painting that caused uproar in 1962, 11 posters of Nelson Mendela, 11 annotated political cartoons, two national anthems for comparison, and 19 recommended books and links to 19 relevant sites.

An overview essay of 3,500 words describes the "enormous impact" of Kennedy's visit and illuminates "the manner in which he subtly challenged and undermined some of the pillars of apartheid ideology and mythology." A study materials section is designed for use in high schools and colleges with questions for class discussion and a feedback questionnaire. Additionally, the site's audio and video streaming now works with Realplayer and Mediaplayer, and the video streaming also now works with with Quicktime. A valuable site for studying the history of race relations in South Africa and the United States.

Beginning in 1919, the Virginia War History Commission compiled more than 14,900 surveys of World War I veterans in Virginia. Images of these four-page questionnaires—with additional material submitted by veterans or family members, including 1,046 photographs—have been digitized and made accessible on this site. The surveys provide basic demographic information on the soldiers and their families, as well as details of their war records, including descriptions of engagements, citations, injuries, and deaths.

In addition, the last page of the survey poses questions regarding the effect of the war and military service on states of mind and religious beliefs, as well as effects of disabilities on employment after the war. A valuable source for historians and students researching military history and the war experience.

Presents the full text of the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1911, with approximately 30,000 articles by more than 1,500 authors. According to PageWise, an Internet information resource responsible for digitizing the Encyclopedia, the 11th edition marked a shift to a more journalistic writing style than existed previously. The site will provide a wealth of material for those studying the state of commonly available knowledge at the time of this edition's circulation.

A celebratory exhibit of approximately 35 images and accompanying short texts—each only approximately 100 words in length—on the life of Nobel prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961). The exhibit begins with the writer's family and educational background in Oak Park, IL, then offers sections on his Paris, middle, and later years. Images include photographs and artists' renditions of Hemingway and a few literary contemporaries, and images of covers of some of his novels. Though commentary is slight in content and in insight into the man and his art, the images and accompanying quotations are well-chosen.

Presents a searchable version of a two-volume 1876 publication by the state of New Jersey's Adjutant General's office, which compiled rosters of the state's military forces during the Civil War. Listings are arranged by regiment. Also includes rosters of "miscellaneous organizations"—troops that fought in New Jersey from other states, the Veteran Reserve Corps, the U.S. Colored Troops, and other U.S. Army and Navy regulars. Listings end with burial records of New Jersey soldiers organized by cemetery. Regiment data is presented in tables with columns for each soldier's rank, date of commission or enrollment, dates mustered in and out, length of enlistment, discharge data, and additional notes. Introductory material in the volumes includes a three-page report by Adjutant General William S. Stryker to the governor with a chronicle tracking the activities of regiments during the war. The volumes end with a hyperlinked personal name index. Valuable for those studying Civil War history, African-American history, New Jersey history, and for those conducting genealogical research.

Presents transcriptions of oral history interviews—with selected accompanying audio files—of five students who participated during World War II in Brooklyn College's Farm Labor Project.

The students, most of whom were children of Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland and were committed to radical politics, journeyed upstate during the summer to work on farms in order to support the war effort. The site organizes excerpts of the words of the five interviewees—four women and one man—into four broad sections covering their background and youth, campus life, life on the farm, and life after the project.

These sections are further divided into 20 subsections covering such topics as family life, social influences, politics, working conditions on the farm, protests against a "capitalist" farmer, interactions with locals, and later life. Individual excerpts range in length from one sentence to 750 words. Audio files are provided for 23 of the excerpts.

The site also includes 12 photos from the project, a timeline, and a syllabus for an undergraduate-level course in Oral History Theory and Practice.

A second group of oral histories addresses the shutdown of Brooklyn College's newspaper during the McCarthy era as well as related biographies, contextual essays, and primary documents. The site will be valuable to those studying student life, radical culture, American Jewish history, and homefront experiences during World War II.

Provides two exhibits on black history in Hartford, CT. "A Struggle from the Start" charts stages in the life of the Hartford African-American community from 1638 to 1920. Structured in five chronological sections, each with three-to-four thematic subsections, a text of 21,000 words is punctuated with approximately 60 images of documents, photographs, illustrations, newspaper clippings, tables, paintings, and maps. This exhibit covers slavery, black codes, free blacks, Black governors in the early Republic period, black soldiers, the black bourgeoisie, the formation of the black community, black labor, black society, black churches, the "Talented Tenth" in Hartford, black painters Charles Ethan Porter and Holdridge Primus, black migration from the South, mass politics, and black community institutions. A second exhibit presents approximately 80 photographs from Hartford's African-American community covering the years 1870 to the 1970s. Valuable for those interested in studying African-American history from a community perspective.

Presents 7,680 scanned pages of 47 notebooks kept by American chemist Linus Pauling (1901-1994) from 1922 to 1994. Pauling won two Nobel Prizes—for Chemistry in 1954 and for Peace in 1962—due to his involvement in campaigns for nuclear disarmament. Each notebook contains a contents index. In addition, the site provides a detailed alphabetical subject index that includes personal names. Notebooks offer many reprints of articles published by Pauling. The site also directs users to 23 selected highlights—pages relevant to Pauling's most significant work and to some autobiographical entries. Includes "An Open Letter to President Bush," dated January 1991, in protest of the Gulf War. Valuable for those studying the history of American science in the 20th century.