Chickasaw Historical Research Page

Image
Logo, Chickasaw History website
Annotation

Dedicated to making documents available concerning the Chickasaw Indian Nation—originally located in the South but removed in the 1830s to Oklahoma territory. This site, created by a member of the Chickasaw Indian Nation, contains a collection of more than 130 letters written by, to, or about the Chickasaw between 1792 and 1849; the texts of more than 30 treaties; and more than 25 additional documents such as tribal rolls, census information, government records, and Bible entries.

Includes a link to the author's other site Chickasaw Nation, Indian Territory: 1837-1907, that contains a 650-word essay on Chickasaw Nation History and links to more than 15 additional sites pertaining to the Chickasaw and resources on more general Native American subjects.

Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials, 1952-2008

Image
Still, from 2008 Democrat campaign commercial "Steel."
Annotation

This website presents more than 250 commercials that appeared on American television sets beginning in 1952 to sell presidential candidates to the public. Advertisements from each election, including the 2008 campaigns, are accessible by year as well as by common themes and strategies used over time, such as Commander in Chief, Fear, Children, and Real People. Advertisements are also browsable by issue, such as civil rights, corruption, war, taxes, and welfare.

This collection includes well-known ads such as the Daisy Ad and well-known public figures, such as Harry Belafonte's advertisement in support of Kennedy, as well as many others that may be less familiar in the 21st century. Essays focus on analyzing advertising strategies of major party candidates and a program guide presents a history of the usage of television commercials in campaigns.

1896: The Presidential Campaign

Image
freesilvercartoon
Annotation

The election of 1896 was one of the most contentious in U.S. history. When Republican William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan on November 3rd, there were no fewer than six candidates on the ballot and the country was in the throes of an economic depression. This website provides close to 100 political cartoons surrounding the election campaigns.

The website acts like a virtual web of knowledge, with linked words in almost every sentence leading to helpful chunks of information on key themes, political parties and their leaders, print culture, and popular culture. Together, this information sheds light not only on the political situation in the 1890s, but also on the social, economic, and cultural contexts of the era. Special sections are devoted to, among many other topics, the bicycle craze, antisemitism, popular amusements, the Supreme Court, and women's suffrage. An extensive bibliography and a section devoted to teaching suggestions are also included.

History of Presidential Elections Site

Image
Logo, HistoryCentral.com, United States Presidential Elections
Annotation

Provides statistics on all U.S. presidential elections. For each election year, the site presents graphs showing popular and electoral votes, maps of states won by each candidate, vote count and voter turnout statistics, and a sketchy essay of approximately 100 words in length on campaign issues. Offers more extensive information on the 2000 election: official certified results; polling data by five organizations from August through October 2000; biographical statements of 300-600 words each on candidates George W. Bush,Al Gore, and Ralph Nader (the Bush bio, almost twice the length of the others, reads as if it was written by his campaign organization); a chronology of events following the election until Gore's concession; and the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision, concurrence by Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissents by Justices Breyer, Souter, and Stevens, and oral arguments. Also includes an essay of 900 words on close and disputed elections, with links to "quick facts" about the candidates involved; an essay of 600 words about the reasons that the electoral college was created, with a link to Federalist Paper No. 68 by Alexander Hamilton, which offers a rationale for the institution; and a 15-minute multimedia history of the Supreme Court. MultiEducators of New Rochelle, NY produces multimedia software on historical subjects; graphs and texts in this site have been taken from their American History CD-Rom. A useful source for statistics on presidential elections, but marred by intrusive flashing ads.

America Votes: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia

Image
Photo, FDR campaign button, America Votes
Annotation

A potpourri of 69 images of campaign memorabilia focusing primarily on presidential elections, beginning with a 1796 letter from Supreme Court Justice William Paterson picking John Adams to win against Thomas Jefferson and closing with a Bush/Cheney 2000 button. Includes flags, letters, sheet music, bumper stickers, handbills, buttons, and even a pack of "Stevenson for President" cigarettes.

Items are indexed by candidates and parties. Includes a 600-word background essay and links to 13 sites pertaining to current political parties. Though limited in size, this site can be useful to students interested in comparing visual materials from presidential campaigns throughout U.S. history.

American State Papers, 1789-1838

Image
Logo, Readex
Annotation

This subscription-only website presents an extensive archive of U.S. history documents, offering roughly 6,300 publications. The archive provides access to every Congressional and Executive document of the first 14 U.S. Congresses, and additional coverage through the 25th Congress, as well as tables, maps, charts, and other illustrations. The collection is particularly strong in military history, with 205 documents about military bases and posts and 134 on military construction. Other documents address topics such as westward expansion, Native American affairs, and issues surrounding slavery. This collection also includes numerous speeches and messages by Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.

Users can browse the archive by category: Subjects, Publication Category, Standing-Committee Author, Document Class, and Congress. Simple and advanced searches are available, enabling easy access into this large collection of documents. For those with access, this site is a valuable resource for researching the government and military in the early United States.

American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series I, 1760-1900

Image
Logo, Readex
Annotation

This subscription-only website presents an extensive archive of documents relevant to early U.S. history, offering full-color facsimile images of approximately 30,000 broadsides and ephemera. Advertisements, campaign literature, poems, juvenile literature, and Civil War envelopes comprise the bulk of the collection, making the archive especially valuable for those interested in early American consumer culture, political campaigns, and literary life. The collection also contains rich information on slavery, Native American relations, and local events—plays, gatherings, and religious events.

Users can browse the archive by category: Genre, Subjects, Author, History of Printing, Place of Publication, and Language. Simple and advanced searches are available, enabling easy access into this large collection of documents. For those with access, this site provides an extensive resource for researching 18th- and 19th-century North America.

Political Thought Page

Image
Painting, The Death of Socrates, Jacques-Louis David
Annotation

Furnishes 15 partially-annotated links to political theory resources arranged in four categories: "Idealism and the Ancient World"; "Realism"; "Liberalism"; and "History as Progress." Also includes nine "short pieces that raise questions of contemporary significance, inspired by the classics" on political thinkers from Plato to Marx; a recent newspaper article relating Machiavelli to contemporary times; and a link to the transcript of a 1992 interview with Francis Fukuyama, along with accompanying audio and video clips. A site useful as an introduction to western philosophical writings on political theory and for its attempt to relate classical theory to contemporary issues.

Shaping the Constitution

Image
Print, The Age of Brass. . . , 1869, Currier and Ives, Shaping the Constitution
Annotation

Shaping the Constitution revolves around the role of Virginia in early American military and political history.

The first section, Becoming Free and Independent States, offers an overview of the perspectives of early Virginians on the Revolutionary War. The page includes biographies of figures of note, ranging from George Washington to Billy, a slave impressed by the British Navy. Each biography offers titles and/or web links for further reading. The main draw of the section, though, is a collection of 32 primary sources—broadsides, portraits, maps, warrants, petitions, a cartoon, and more. Each primary source can be selected for additional information, a transcript, related sources, and/or a high-resolution copy of the source. One surprise worth noting is that selecting the high-res copy of the source sometimes provides a PDF file with multiple related sources, rather than just the one you may have thought you were downloading.

Each of the following sections follow a similar structure—biographies, primary sources, and a short text overview. Topics include Virginia and the Constitutional debate; Bill of Rights; and 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments.

An additional feature, located within the majority of the individual sections is a "For Educators" button. This button opens a list of lesson plans and their respective Virginia standards. Only the 15th and 19th Amendment portions of the site lack this option.

A laudable fact about this website is that it provides unpleasant sources (such as a photo of an Alexandria slave pen) as well as copies of major government documents. These sources are useful for showing precisely what facts of historical life various political decisions and amendments were created to change.

Television News of the Civil Rights Era

Image
Image for Television News of the Civil Rights Era
Annotation

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement was covered on news stations around the country. This website provides 230 of these video clips from two local television stations in Roanoke, Virginia. Clips feature both national events, such as the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John F. Kennedy, as well as footage of local school desegregation, protests, and interviews on the street.

Accompanying this footage are 14 oral histories (several from Virginians with firsthand knowledge of the Prince Edward Public Schools closing), and 23 documents that chronicle the official development of Massive Resistance in Virginia, in particularly the involvement of Senator Harry F. Byrd. "Essays and Interpretation" provides important historical context and analysis, with detailed pieces on "Virginia's Massive Resistance to School Desegregation" and the development of television news coverage of the Civil Rights Movement in Virginia and Mississippi.