Northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform in the Press

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This website brings together more than 200 letters, articles, official documents, and illustrations focused on issues of race and reform during and after the Civil War, including unpublished letters written by Northern women who taught freedmen in the South and letters written by their students. Many of the texts are presented in original (handwritten) format and transcription. The website is a combination exhibit, with introductory and explanatory text, and primary source archive.

Materials are available through two paths-through the "Primary Resource Index" or through three topics: "The Freedmen," "Freedmen's Education," and "At War's End" (not yet complete). Within each topic, there are four to seven subtopics, such as "The Emancipation Proclamation" and "Visions of Freedmen in Letters of Freedmen" and at least one subtopic has further subcategories. Each subtopic begins with introductory text, often several paragraphs in length, that provides background information as well as links to relevant documents. The site cautions that "some of the materials on this site are racially offensive." A search is available at the bottom of document pages, but the dedicated search page is not currently working. There are links to more than 100 additional online primary and secondary sources.

Getting the Message Out! National Political Campaign Materials, 1840-1860

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After property qualifications for voting were eliminated in the 1830s, the American electorate expanded from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. As abolition, the extension of slavery, the Mexican War, and the Dred Scott decision dominated the national debate, songs, parades, and barbecues became increasingly important campaign tools to reach out to new voters. This type of political material culture is highlighted through this website, presenting 1,200 documents, more than 650 images, 100 songs, and interactive country-wide Presidential election maps for all six Presidential elections between 1840 and 1860. Detailed contextual information is available on a wide range of subjects, such as political campaigns, political parties, and major national events. Five short videos by well-known scholars address political culture, the second party system, politics as popular entertainment, and women's roles in antebellum politics. The detailed lesson plan in the "Teacher's Podium" challenges students to assess changing campaign strategies through song lyrics.

Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819

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This database is the most essential collection of written materials for historical research in American history from 1801-1819. It provides full-text access to nearly 4.5 million pages of 36,000 books, pamphlets, broadsides and other imprints published in the U.S. during this period. Gazetteers, almanacs, juvenile literature, chapbooks, hymnals, campaign literature, novels, slave narratives, spelling books, school readers, treaties, maps, atlases, advertisements, diaries, autobiographies, and much more are all included. Most of these materials were originally detailed in the bibliography compiled by Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker. This collection, long available on microfiche, is made available here as a digital, fully searchable online database. It complements Readex's other Early American Imprints series of material from the period of 1639-1800.

Life After the Holocaust: Stories of Holocaust Survivors After The War

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This website presents the stories of six Holocaust survivors—three men, three women; five born in Poland and one in Czechoslovakia—who immigrated to the United States after World War II. Visitors can either listen to the six 30-minute interviews in their entirety, or listen to interview clips surrounding six themes: "starting over," "arriving in New York," "living with the past," "speaking out," "faith, guilt, and responsibility," and "telling their children." Many of the survivors begin by talking about their experiences before the war, and proceed to explain the complexities of starting over in the United States after the war.

Each interview is interspersed with narration and accompanied by photographs and other personal memorabilia, helping visitors better contextualize the narrators' stories. Audio files and interview transcripts are downloadable, making this website's resources useful in classroom settings, as well as to a broader public interested in understanding the aftermath of the Holocaust through deeply personal accounts.

The Lincoln Institute

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This extensive website offers five projects on Abraham Lincoln's life and political career along with teacher and student resources. Each section offers essays on the persons discussed. "Mr. Lincoln's White House" explores the people and events related to the White House in Mr. Lincoln's time, including a look at nearby areas of the city, and a section on visitors' impressions of Lincoln. "Mr. Lincoln and the Founders" includes an essay on Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence, a background essay, observations by Lincoln scholars, and a bibliography. "Mr. Lincoln and Freedom," explores Lincoln and the issue of slavery. Additional topics include "Mr. Lincoln and Friends" and "Mr. Lincoln and New York."

The "Teacher Assistance" page includes links to 13 lesson plans. The site also offers a link to "Abraham Lincoln's Classroom" with resources for students and teachers, including quizzes, quotes, featured commentary, and links to maps. This site is an outstanding resource for material on teaching about Lincoln and the events of his presidency, as well as an excellent starting point for research on the Lincoln presidency and the politics and people of the Civil War era.

The Great Seattle Fire

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This website offers 150 photographs documenting the aftermath of the "Great Seattle Fire" that occurred on June 6, 1889. The collection is introduced by a short essay relating the main events of the fire along with statistics on the estimated damage it caused to the city. Each photograph is accompanied by a short description and full bibliographic data including date of the photograph, the photographer (if known), and a subject cross-reference list. Visitors can browse through all 150 photographs, search by keyword, or use the advanced search feature to search for title, subject, description, creator, publisher, contributors, date, type, format, or source. The site also offers links to five other related collections of photographs of Seattle and Washington State in the mid-to-late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Besides those specifically interested in the Great Fire, this collection of photos is a useful resource for persons researching the history of the urban West in the 19th century or the history of Seattle.

Travel, Tourism, and Urban Growth in Greater Miami: A Digital Archive

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This site uses essays, a detailed timeline, and an image gallery to examine the growth of Miami and the history of its travel and tourism industry. An essay by Project Director Bachin provides an introduction to the website. The site has seven main thematic sections: advertising, architecture, environment, land use, migration, tourism, and transportation. Each section is introduced by a short three-to-five page essay and features a chronology and an annotated bibliography. There is also a searchable image gallery with more than 590 subjects, many with multiple images. The visitor can browse the gallery by subject, location, resource (such as aerial views, photographs, or postcards), or collection.

The site also offers an overall chronology (1823-2000), divided into sections for 1800s to WWI, WWI to 1930s, WWII to the 1950s, and the 1960s to the 1990s. The chronology can also be viewed by 18 themes such as civil rights, the Great Depression, hurricanes, land use, migration, and tourism. The overall annotated bibliography lists more than 90 books, links to 16 related websites, and 14 related archives. This site offers outstanding resources for those teaching or researching the history of Miami and South Florida and should also be of interest to anyone working on 20th-century urban and business history.

Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage

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The cultural heritage of Maryland is readily accessible here through thousands of digitized documents, maps, and images arranged into more than 40 collections and two exhibits. Baltimore's native son and prominent early 20th-century journalist H.L. Mencken is featured through a collection of 19 portraits, artifacts, and letters. Edgar Allen Poe, who lived in Baltimore late in his life, can be glimpsed through 18 portraits, drafts, and letters. Another collection offers digital copies of primary sources from the War of 1812, including an original draft of the "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Other collections include photographs of African American life, a selection of sports-related items, photographs and watercolor paintings of old houses and churches in Queen Anne's County, vintage photographs of Baltimore streets and street cars, and a series of photographs awaiting identification from collection users. Ample historical context, including library donation information, is provided for all collections. The website's blog will be useful for those interested in library sciences, preservation, and digital archiving.

The Adoption History Project

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In 1851, Massachusetts passed the first law recognizing adoption as a legal and social operation. Since then, adoption has had a rich history in the United States, documented at this website through close to 200 reports, writings, letters, adoption narratives, and other documents. Users unfamiliar with adoption history might begin by exploring the detailed timeline that traces adoption history from 1851 to 2000, when Congress passed the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 eliminating the process of naturalization for international adoptions. Moving on to the Topics in Adoption History section, with in-depth explanations of orphan trains, proxy adoptions, infertility, child welfare, and eugenics, will help build historical context. The Document Archive and Adoption Science sections boast documents from the late 1800s to the present by notables such as Pearl Buck, adoptees searching for information on their biological parents, and court decisions on adoption throughout the 20th century.

The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti

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Felix Frankfurter's 18,000-word article about the prosecution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Italian-born anarchists charged with murder and robbery in 1920 and put to death in 1927, is presented here. The piece reflects doubts entertained by many intellectuals about the highly controversial trial. Appearing in the March 1927 edition of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, it provided background as well as a careful analysis of the legal questions involved. Frankfurter concluded that "every reasonable probability points away from Sacco and Vanzetti."

The site includes links to seven additional Atlantic Monthly articles: two on the trial—Katherine Anne Porter's "The Never-Ending Wrong" and "Vanzetti's Last Statement: A Record" by W. G. Thompson, the lawyer for the accused—and five dealing more broadly with the American criminal justice system. The site, while limited, is useful for studying radicalism, the red scare, and 1920s America.