These two collections illuminate life on the Great Plains from 1862 to 1912. The nearly 3,500 glass plate negatives depict everyday life in central Nebraska, with images of businesses, farms, people, churches, and fairs in four counties. Approximately 318 letters describe the sojourn of the Uriah Oblinger family through Indiana, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, and Missouri as they traveled to establish a homestead. Letters discuss such topics as land, work, neighbors, crops, religious meetings, grasshoppers, financial troubles, and Nebraska's Easter Blizzard of 1873.

A 1,000-word essay describes the letter collection and the lives of the principal correspondents. Biographical notes are available for more than 120 of the people who corresponded with the Oblingers or who were mentioned in the letters.

Covering more than 200 jazz bands and musicians active from 1895 to 1929, this website offers biographical information, photographs, and audio and video files. It includes more than 200 sound files of jazz recordings by well-known artists, such as Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, and Django Reinhardt, as well as many by dozens of lesser-known musicians.

The files are annotated with biographical essays of varying length, discographies, and bibliographic listings. Listings are available for 20 short jazz films made in the late 1920s and early 1930s as well as two video files. Twenty essays and articles about jazz before 1930 come from published liner notes, books, journals, or jazz fans.

The cultural impact of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the focus of this well-designed exhibit. Three galleries offer images and explanatory text.

"'To Please a Child': L. Frank Baum and the Land of Oz" examines various aspects of the book, including W.W. Denslow's artwork, Baum's original copyright application, and an early review of the book appearing in the October 1900 issue of The Literary Review. "To See the Wizard: Oz on Stage and Film" looks at two of the most famous productions of Baum's book, the 1902–1903 stage play that became one of Broadway's greatest successes and the classic 1939 MGM movie, including color posters and a full-page color advertisement placed in the September 1939 issue of Cosmopolitan "To Own the Wizard: Oz Artifacts" examines Oz-related novelties, including the Wizard of Oz Monopoly game by Hasbro, a Wizard of Oz stamp, and "The Royal Bank of Oz" rebate check from MGM.

A vast database of Thomas Edison's papers, this website includes 71,000 pages of correspondence, 12,000 pages of technical drawings, and more than 13,000 clippings about the inventor from 103 journals and newspapers. The site boasts over five million pages of documents related to Edison. Processes for searching the site are complicated, but an extensive guide offers search strategies.

Materials include 2,210 facsimiles of Edison patents from 1868 to 1931 for products such as the electric lamp and the phonograph. A collection of 14 photographs, maps, and prints depict Edison, his environs, and his inventions. The site offers a "Document Sampler" of 23 selections of general interest as well as an 8,000-word essay on Edison's companies, 22 pages about Edison and the development of the motion picture industry, and two chronologies. A bibliography directs visitors to more than 70 books and articles and 21 related websites.

Based on Mark Twain's works and life, this engaging website focuses on the author's life and career, including the creation of his popular image, the marketing and promotion of his texts, and live performances. Five sections center on major works, including Innocents Abroad, Tom Sawyer, and Pudd'nhead Wilson. Each section is placed within a historical context.

The website offers an extensive collection of text sources, including 50 published texts or lectures, 16 letters, and over 100 texts and excerpts from other late 19th-century authors. Twenty-nine items from publishers, more than 80 newspaper and magazine articles, 35 obituary notices, over 100 period literary reviews, and hundreds of illustrations and photographs round out this informative site. An interactive graphic essay explores the issue of racism through various American illustrations of "Jim" in Huckleberry Finn. This is an invaluable resource for studying American literature and its place within the 19th-century marketplace and landscape.

These full-text transcriptions and page images of 163 "Sunday school books" address religious instruction for youth published in the U.S. between 1815 and 1865. Materials include texts used by Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and other denominations and are searchable by subject, author, title, and keyword.

Books are categorized according to nine types: "Advice Books, Moral Tales"; "Animals, Natural History"; "Child Labor, Orphans, Poverty"; "Death, Dying, Illness"; "Holidays"; "Immigrants"; "Slavery, African Americans, Native Americans"; "Temperance, Tobacco"; and "Travel, Missionaries." There are 67 author biographies and an essay on Sunday school books. This collection offers valuable materials for studying antebellum culture, American religious history, print culture, and education.

This well-designed, comprehensive website explores Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin as an American cultural phenomenon. "Pre-Texts, 1830–1852" provides dozens of texts, songs, and images from the various genres Stowe drew upon, including Christian texts, sentimental culture, anti-slavery texts, and minstrel shows. The section on the novel includes Stowe's preface, multiple versions of the text, playable songs from the novel, and Stowe's defense against criticism.

A third section focuses on responses from 1852 to 1930, including 25 reviews, more than 400 articles and notes, as well as nearly 100 responses from African Americans and almost 70 from pro-slavery adherents. "Other Media" explores theatrical and film versions, children's books, songs, poetry, and games. Fifteen interpretive exhibits challenge users to investigate how slavery and race were defined and redefined as well as analyze how various characters assumed a range of political and social meanings.

This exhibit commemorates the 125th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire (1871) with an array of primary sources arranged into two sections. "The Great Chicago Fire" examines the fire through five chronological chapters, while a second section, "The Web of Memory," focuses on the ways in which the fire has been remembered. This section presents the story through eyewitness accounts, popular illustrations, journal articles, fiction, poetry, and painting. It also examines the legend of Mrs. O'Leary.

The site furnishes galleries of images and artifacts, primary texts, songs, a newsreel, an “Interactive Panorama of Chicago, 1858," and background essays that explore the social and cultural context of the fire and its aftermath.

Scanned images of more than 18,000 pieces of sheet music, including covers, published prior to 1923 are presented on this website. The collection, compiled by an American musicologist, covers the period 1780–1980 but focuses on 19th-century popular music, especially songs relating to military conflicts, presidents, romance, transportation, and songs from the minstrel stage.

Users may search for songs on hundreds of topics such as drinking, smoking, fraternal orders, the circus, and death, or look for composers, song titles, or other catalog record data. Descriptions by the collector of significant songs in 38 topical categories are also available. These materials are useful for studying 19th- and early 20th-century popular culture, especially depictions of ethnicity, gender, and race.

A wealth of documents and analytical essays emphasize the social history of Plymouth Colony from 1620 to 1691. This website also offers a tribute to the scholarly work of the late James Deetz, professor of historical archaeology. Documents include 135 probates, 24 wills, and 14 texts containing laws and court cases on land division, master-servant relations, sexual misconduct, and disputes involving Native Americans.

The site also provides more than 90 biographical studies, research papers, and topical articles that analyze "life ways" of 395 individuals who lived in the colony and offer theoretical views on the colony's legal structure, gender roles, vernacular house forms, and domestic violence. There are 25 maps or plans, approximately 50 photographs, and excerpts from Deetz's books on the history and myths of Plymouth Colony and on Anglo-American gravestone styles.