Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project

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Logo, National Indian Law Library (NILL)
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This website presents full-text versions of 500 codes, constitutions, treaties, land titles, and Supreme Court decisions relating to the more than 500 Native American tribes in the U.S. The bulk of the material lies in the "IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) Era Constitutions and Charters" section, which offers close to 300 documents. These are primarily corporate charters, constitutions, and bylaws from the 1930s and 1940s. The website also includes the 1936 Composite Indian Reorganization Act for Alaska and twentieth-century constitutions from selected tribes, such as the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

For material before the twentieth century, the "Treaties" section includes scans of the original Six Nations Treaty of 1794 and the Senekas Treaties of 1797 and 1823. In addition, a digitized version of Felix Cohen's 1941 Handbook of Federal Indian Law, and the Opinions of the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior Relating to Indian Affairs 1917-1974 are both available.

Early Recognized Treaties with American Indian Nations

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Logo, Early Recognized Treaties with American Indian Nations
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This website presents the first seven treaties between the British and American Indian Nations, along with two treaties ratified with the United States in later years. These nine treaties provide a complement to Charles J. Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, a compendium of 366 treaties (digitized by the Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center), now making all federally recognized treaties with American Indian Nations available in electronic format. These nine treaties range in date from 1722, The Great Treaty of 1722 Between the Five Nations, the Mahicans, and the Colonies of New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, to 1805, A Treaty Between the United States of America and the sachems, chiefs, and warriors, of the Wyandot, Ottawa, Chippewa, Munsee, and Delaware, Shawnee, and Pattawatamy nations.

Most of the treaties are long, detailing proceedings that occurred over the course of at least several days. They address topics such as land and boundary disputes, and shed light on the ceremony surrounding these meetings. Facsimile copies of the original printed versions of all nine treaties are available, as are transcripts. Though there is no keyword search feature, transcribed text appears on one page, facilitating the use of a computer's "Find" function.

History of Presidential Elections Site

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Logo, HistoryCentral.com, United States Presidential Elections
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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.

American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election

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Photo, detail from "James W. Gerard. . . ," 1915, American Leaders Speak
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These 59 sound recordings document speeches by American leaders produced from 1918 to 1920 on the Nation's Forum record label. The speeches—by such prominent public figures as Warren G. Harding, James M. Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, John J. Pershing, Will H. Hays, A. Mitchell Palmer, and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise—deal for the most part with issues and events related to World War I and the 1920 presidential election. Additional topics include social unrest, Americanism, bolshevism, taxes, and business practices.

Speeches range from one to five minutes in length. A special presentation, "From War to Normalcy," introduces the collection with representative recordings, including Harding's famous pronouncement that Americans need "not nostrums but normalcy." This site includes photographs of speakers and of the actual recording disk labels, as well as text versions of the speeches.

American State Papers, 1789-1838

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Logo, Readex
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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.

Television News of the Civil Rights Era

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Image for Television News of the Civil Rights Era
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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.

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive

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Logo, Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive
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More than 1,700 texts written by or to Thomas Jefferson are available on this website, including correspondence, books, addresses, and public papers. While most texts are presented in transcribed, word-searchable format, 18 appear as color images of original manuscripts.

The site also includes a biography of Jefferson written in 1834, eight years after his death. The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, published in 1900, organizes more than 9,000 quotes according to theme and other categories. A collection of 2,700 excerpts from Jefferson's writings present his political philosophy. A wealth of searchable bibliographic listings is provided, including two previously published volumes and thousands of additional bibliographic references.

Also available are a recent dissertation on the construction of the Jefferson-designed University of Virginia (UVA), listings from the Oxford English Dictionary that show Jefferson's influence on English-language usage, and four links to UVA exhibitions on Jefferson.

Women's Studies Database

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Photo, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison
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This site, by the Women's Studies group at the University of Maryland, presents primary materials relating to women's history. Offers the texts of the 1848 "Declaration of Sentiments," and Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech, "Ain't I A Woman?" Additionally, the site furnishes essays and timelines concerning the 19th amendment, a newsletter entitled Women of Achievement and Herstory, and 39 biographical sketches, which range from approximately 75 to 150 words each. The presentation is haphazard, and the search engine is cumbersome. The site is perhaps most valuable for its examination of the 1920 ratification of the 19th amendment.

Margaret Sanger Papers Project

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Selected materials by and about the "birth control pioneer" Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) are provided here. A link to a companion site offers approximately 200 documents dealing with The Woman Rebel, Sanger's 1914 radical feminist monthly, for which she was indicted and tried for violation of federal obscenity laws.

The project plans to digitize more than 600 of Sanger's speeches and articles. At present, there are 25 transcribed speeches, 182 newspaper articles from 1911–1921, four public statements, a letter written by Sanger in 1915, and more than 50 articles from the Margaret Sanger Papers Project Newsletter, some of which contain primary source materials. There are plans to add to items regularly. Materials also include 27 links to sites offering Sanger writings, a biographical essay, and a bibliography. Links to collections of images and an MP3 file of Margaret Sanger's 1953 "This I Believe" speech are also available.

Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project

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Image, Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project
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The life and work of black activist Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) are presented on this website. Garvey was the leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and "champion of the back-to-Africa movement." Materials include 40 documents, such as correspondence, editorials, reports of U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Investigation agents, articles from African American newspapers, and a chapter from Garvey's autobiography. Primary documents are accompanied by 15 background essays.

The website also provides four audio clips from recordings of speeches Garvey made in 1921 and 24 images, including photos of Garvey, his wife, and colleagues, and facsimiles of UNIA documents. Particularly valuable as a condensed history of Garvey's movement and also useful for those studying African American political and cultural movements in general.