Truman Presidential Museum and Library

Image
Annotation

The presidency of Harry S. Truman is addressed through these hundreds of government documents, oral histories, photographs, and political cartoons. Materials cover topics including the Berlin airlift, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, desegregation of the Armed Forces, the election campaign of 1948, the Korean War, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Truman Doctrine, Truman's Farewell Address, the recognition of the State of Israel, the United Nations, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Transcripts are available for approximately 120 oral histories conducted with members of Truman's administration and officials from other countries on the Korean War. The website also offers the full text of Truman's diary from 1947; more than 50 audio files with extracts of speeches, press conferences, and interviews; and more than 31,000 biographical photographs.

Votes for Women: Selections from the NAWSA, 1848-1921

Image
Annotation

Covering the years from 1848 to 1921, this website presents materials from the suffrage movement in America, including 167 books, pamphlets, handbooks, reports, speeches, and other artifacts totaling some 10,000 pages. Formed in 1890 from two rival groups, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) orchestrated passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 through state campaigns. Materials include works by Carrie Chapman Catt, the Association's longtime president, as well as from other officers and members, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, and Mary A. Livermore. There are two bibliographies, an essay on Catt, a timeline, and links to 18 related collections, most of them associated with the Library of Congress American Memory.

Tangled Roots

Image
Annotation

These more than 200 documents explore cultural connections between the experiences of African Americans and Irish immigrants in America. Materials relate to individual leaders, historical events, economic, political, and social factors, and cultural achievements. A section entitled "Making Connections" offers 15 questions about historical events and people that represent the intertwined histories of Africans and Irish in America.

Other topics include the end of English participation in the slave trade, the emergence of the nativist Know-Nothing Party in the 1850s, and Ku Klux Klan activities against Catholics and blacks after the Civil War. A section on "Acceptance" explores perceptions of individual and group identities and four timelines focus on displacement, oppression, discrimination, and acceptance in America. "Voices" provides a sample of 13 public statements and interviews on ethnicity and race from ordinary modern Americans. The site also provides a bibliography; an essay by writer James McGowan, a black American with an Irish paternal grandfather; and links to related websites.

The Presidents

Image
Annotation

All 42 of the nation's completed presidencies are profiled in detail on this website geared towards teaching the history of the American Presidency. In-depth biographies include information on childhood, education, career, elections, family life, domestic policy, and foreign affairs. Many biographies include links to numerous primary sources—speeches, writings, letters, and diplomatic documents—and to lesson plans. As a companion website to the PBS American Experience documentaries, these resources are hooked into a larger "Archives" section available at the top of the screen. Here, users will find thousands of resources, including maps, movies, and QuickTime Virtual Reality, on many topics in American history divided by theme and chronology, such as technology, popular culture, war, and urban and rural environments.

History and Politics Out Loud

Image
Annotation

Audio materials on this website were designed to capture "significant political and historical events and personalities of the 20th century."

Materials include 107 items, including speeches, addresses, and private telephone conversations from 19 speakers. Most material comes from three U.S. presidents—Richard M. Nixon (34 items); Lyndon Baines Johnson (30 items); and John F. Kennedy (19 items).

Additional material highlights international figures such as Secretary of State George Marshall; British Prime Minister Winston Churchill; civil rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, and A. Philip Randolph; Supreme Court Justices William O. Douglas, Arthur J. Goldberg, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.; and Soviet Union Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev. This website provides an opportunity to experience the persuasive speaking powers of 20th-century world leaders.

Mark Twain in His Times

Image
Annotation

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.

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

Image
Annotation

This exhibition of 212 written documents and visual images explores the significance of religion in early American history and its relationship with the establishment of republican institutions. Materials include manuscripts, letters, books, prints, paintings, sermons, pamphlets, artifacts, and music.

There are seven sections, each with a 500-word essay and item annotations. Topics include religious persecution in Europe that led to emigration, including woodcuts depicting religious violence; religious experience in 18th-century America, including the Great Awakening; the influence of religious leaders and ideas on the War of Independence; and evangelical movements of the early 19th century. Additional topics include policies toward religion of the Continental Confederation Congress, state governments, and the new federal government, including sermons and appeals arguing for and against tax-supported religion.

Watergate Revisited

Image
Annotation

This is a thorough introduction to the Watergate scandal. Created by the Washington Post, the newspaper whose investigative journalism led to President Richard M. Nixon's downfall, the website provides more than 80 relevant news stories. It also offers links to 20 documents—speeches, tape transcriptions, and Nixon's letter of resignation—in the National Archives and the Nixon Library. A detailed timeline links to Post stories, and brief biographies introduce 26 "key players" in various phases of the scandal.

Users may listen to eight audio clips and view 11 video clips, such as Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech, announcement of his resignation, and farewell to his staff as well as John Dean's testimony. The Post's Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee discuss the scandal in the transcript of a 1997 interview and a video recording of a 2002 forum. The site also includes a link to 20 cartoons by the Post's Herblock, photographs, and an interactive quiz.

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library

Image
Annotation

This expansive archive of American history and culture features more than nine million items dating from 1490 to the present. Currently this site includes material from 120 collections, some from libraries and archives around the world.

Strengths include the early republic, with documents and papers on the Continental Congress, U.S. Congress, early Virginia religious petitions, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson; the Civil War, including Abraham Lincoln's papers and Mathew Brady photographs; and exploration and settlement of the West. Collections offer papers of inventors, such as Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, Samuel F. B. Morse, and the Wright Brothers; and composers, such as Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland.

The site also features New Deal-era documentation projects, such as Farm Security Administration photographs, Federal Writers' Project life histories, the Historic American Buildings Survey, and the Library's own "Man on the Street" interviews following the Pearl Harbor attack. Entertainment history is amply represented with collections on the American Variety Stage, Federal Theatre Project, early cinema, and early sound recordings. African American history, ethnic history, women's history, folk music, sheet music, maps, and photography also are well documented.

Digitized images from materials not included in specific American Memory sites may be searched using the Library's Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, where users can browse images by topic or search the Library's holdings.