Missouri Digital Heritage

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Painting, Portrait of a Musician, Thomas Hart Benton, 1949
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This massive mega-website presents thousands of documents and images related to Missouri's social, political, and economic history, linking to collections housed at universities, libraries, and heritage sites across the state. These resources are organized both into archival collections (by topic and source type) and virtual exhibits.

Archival collections include maps, municipal records, government and political records, newspapers, photographs and images, books and diaries, as well as topical collections on agriculture, medicine, women, business, exploration and settlement, art and popular culture, and family, rendering the website's resources as useful for genealogists as for those interested in history.

Exhibits encompass a diverse range of subjects, and include topics of relevance to Missouri history (Miss Carrie Watkins's cookbook from the mid-19th century, several exhibits on life at the University of Missouri and Washington University, Truman's Whistle Stop campaign), and topics outside of Missouri (the body in Medieval manuscripts, Roman imperial coins, propaganda posters from World War II, and drawings documenting dinosaur discovery before the mid-20th century).

Teachers will be especially interested in the large Education section, which includes curricular resources on topics such as African Americans in Missouri, Lewis and Clark's Expedition, Missouri State Fairs, and the history of dueling.

Milwaukee Art Museum Collections

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Daguerreotype, Bearded Man, c. 19th century, http://www.mam.org/
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The Milwaukee Art Museum's collection includes more than 20,000 works of art ranging in date from antiquity to the present, and specializing in American decorative arts, German Expressionism, Haitian art, and American art after 1960. This website presents more than 200 pieces from the museum's collection. These works include paintings and sculptures, including several 20th-century works from Haiti; photographs, including Civil War-era portraits and masterpieces from the Great Depression era; prints and drawings primarily from French, Italian, German, and Flemish artists in the 17th-19th centuries; and a small collection of decorative arts, primarily furniture pieces from the early United States.

Beyond the website's Collection section, more artwork is on display in the Exhibitions section, which includes a selection of images from more than 25 current and past exhibitions. A highlight is the exhibit dedicated to the groundbreaking work of Milwaukee industrial designer Brooks Stevens. Here, visitors can view detailed images of some of his most famous designs, which include the Miller Brewing Company logo, the Evinrude outboard motor, and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

Lower East Side Tenement Museum

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Photo, New York, New York, January 23, 2010, flickr4jazz, Flickr
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In 1863, 97 Orchard Street, a tenement in New York City's Lower East Side, opened its doors to the growing population of recent immigrants to that city, housing more than 7,000 people before it closed in 1935. The museum that now occupies that building has restored six families' apartments with careful attention to historical detail. This website, while primarily intended as a guide for those intending to visit the physical museum, provides several tantalizing glimpses at tenement life, as well as information on historical restoration.

The History section presents 15 photographs and etchings explaining the evolution of bathrooms, light, water, and heat in the building, as well as examples of primary source documents and interviews available in the museum's collections. Additionally, a small exhibit of five photographs reconstructs how the museum's curators interpreted a 1918 apartment in the tenement—showing the use of crime scene photographs to determine how the family would have decorated the walls.

The Play section contains a narrated virtual tour of the museum, and five well-designed interactive experiences on immigration and immigrant life geared towards younger learners. Highlights from these sections are repeated in the Education section, which also includes three lesson plans each for elementary, middle, and high school levels focused on teaching with objects, oral histories, and other primary sources.

Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930 Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/29/2012 - 15:15
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Photo, Police Captain Max Nootbaar, Jul. 21, 1914, Chicago Daily News
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Post-Civil-War industrialization and urbanization put new stresses on American law and society. Criminal records reveal the circumstances where social strain boiled over into violence and unrest. Using this website, visitors can search the complete Chicago Police Department Homicide Record Index from 1870 to 1930, detailing more than 11,000 homicides, and read and watch accompanying contextual material that explores tensions between laborers, industry leaders, political ideologies, social reformers, organized crime, and more.

The core of the site is the "Interactive Database." Here, visitors can search cases using keyword, case number, date, circumstances (accident, manslaughter, homicide, number of victims, number of defendants, method of killing, involvement of alcohol), details about the victim and defendant (age, gender, race, occupation), victim/defendant relationship, and legal outcome. Searches return one-line case summaries including the date, names of people involved, case number, a description of the crime, and legal outcome. Clicking on a result brings up details on the particular crime: time, location, type of death/homicide and details of homicide, details on the victim(s) and defendant(s), police involvement, and legal outcome.

Contextualizing primary and secondary sources frame this bare-bones information. A timeline features a summary of one major event and up to five photographs for every year. "Historical Context" currently offers a second timeline highlighting links to up to 17 notable cases for each year and a section on children's lives in the city, with nine newspaper articles on child labor and obituaries for activist Florence Kelley and lawyer Levy Mayer. (Sections on labor and reform movements and people and events did not work at the time of this review.) In "Legal Content," visitors can read short essays on topics related to Chicago criminal and social history, including capital punishment, anti-corruption campaigns, the Chicago Police Department, judges, lawyers, criminology, prostitution, gambling, murder-suicides, and accidents. Each essay links to related cases and onsite and off-site documents. "Legal Content" also hosts 16 downloadable acts and statutes under "The Laws."

"Crimes of the Century" organizes links to related cases under 23 topics, including the 1919 Chicago race riot and the Haymarket Affair. "Publications," the most valuable part of the site for teachers looking for primary sources, archives the full text of 15 primary and secondary documents related to Chicago crime and social change. Here users can download in PDF form modern studies on the death penalty, crime and policing in Chicago, and the Haymarket Affair, or download primary sources such as law codes and crime reports, the Hull House Maps and Papers, Chicago Daily News articles exposing graft and corruption, 19th-century studies of Chicago's homeless, and contemporary commentary on the Haymarket Affair. Finally, visitors can watch 18 interviews with present-day professors, judges, and lawyers in "Videos."

Though difficult to navigate, this site has rich resources to help students and teachers explore the challenges of change at the turn of the century.

History of American Education Web Project

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Introductory graphic, History of American Education Web Project
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Provides 55 images and 60 short essays, ranging in length from a few sentences to approximately 1,500 words, on significant topics in the history of American education. The essays were prepared by undergraduates and edited by their professor, Robert N. Barger, who holds a Ph.D. in the history of education. Organized into five chronological categories from the colonial era to the present, with an additional essay on European influences. Covers such topics as hornbooks, primers, McGuffey Reader's, normal schools, kindergarten, high school, African-American education, adult education, prayer in schools, student rights, and education of the handicapped. Includes essays on such personages as Freidrich Froebel, Herbert Spenser, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Rush, Horace Mann, and G. Stanley Hall. Also offers information on recent topics such as the Committee on Excellence in Education's 1983 study, A Nation at Risk, and the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, signed into law in 1994. Professor Barger's warning that he did not add balance to the "triumphalist" perspective that some of his students adopted should be remembered by those using this site. Nevertheless, it provides a useful introduction to high school students and undergraduates studying the history of American education.

Florida State Archives Photographic Collection

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Image, Conch Town, WPA, C. Foster, 1939, Florida State Archives Photo Collection
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More than 137,000 photographs of Florida, many focusing on specific localities from the mid-19th century to the present, are available on this website. The collection, including 15 online exhibits, is searchable by subject, photographer, keyword, and date.

Materials include 35 collections on agriculture, the Seminole Indians, state political leaders, Jewish life, family life, postcards, and tourism among other things. Educational units address 17 topics, including the Seminoles, the Civil War in Florida, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston, pioneer feminist Roxcy Bolton, the civil rights movement in Florida, and school busing during the 1970s.

"Writing Around Florida" includes ideas to foster appreciation of Florida's heritage. "Highlights of Florida History" presents 46 documents, images, and photographs from Florida's first Spanish period to the present. An interactive timeline presents materials—including audio and video files—on Florida at war, economics and agriculture, geography and the environment, government and politics, and state culture and history.

First World War: The War to End All Wars Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/25/2008 - 22:21
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Image, World War I U.S. propaganda poster, c. 1917, First World War
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The stated purpose of this website is to provide an overview of World War I. This it does effectively through hundreds of essays, 3,100 encyclopedic entries, 618 biographies, 318 resources on the war's major diplomatic and military events, and a timeline. Primary documents include over 100 diaries and firsthand accounts of soldiers and politicians, 3,900 photographs, 651 propaganda posters, and 155 audio files of songs and speeches. Documents include treaties, reports, correspondence, memoirs, speeches, dispatches, and accounts of battles and sieges.

The site also provides 95 essays on literary figures who wrote about the war. While admittedly a work-in-progress, the site offers much material on the leaders who engaged their countries in war and on the experiences of ordinary soldiers who fought the battles.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) Photographs

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Photo, Distribution of clothing at 413 Fairview Avenue, Seattle, Oct. 10, 1934.
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When President Roosevelt created the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) in May of 1933, the nation was in the throes of the Great Depression. Roughly 15 million Americans were unemployed, many of whom had lost both their livelihoods and their life savings. FERA maintained local relief organizations that created work projects for the unemployed, primarily construction and engineering projects. This collection of close to 200 photographs documents the work of FERA in King County, Washington, which includes Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellevue.

The bulk of photographs depict construction projects for roads, bridges, schools, public buildings, and parks. Workers also appear working on sewing machines as well as at relief centers, the blacksmiths' forge, the furniture factory, and the sheet metal workshop. Together, these photographs shed light on not only the development of King County, but also on important general aspects of the New Deal program they sought to document.

Emma Goldman Papers Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/14/2008 - 11:31
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Image for Emma Goldman Papers
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Emma Goldman (1869–1940) was a major figure in the radical and feminist movements in the United States prior to her deportation in 1919. This collection of primary resources includes selections from four books by Goldman as well as 18 published essays and pamphlets, four speeches, 49 letters, and five newspaper accounts of Goldman's activities.

There are also nearly 40 photographs, illustrations, and facsimiles of documents. Additional items include two biographical exhibitions, selections from a published guide of documentary sources, and four sample documents from the book edition of her papers. A curriculum for students is designed to aid the study of freedom of expression, women's rights, anti-militarism, and social change. The site offers essays on the project's history and bibliographic references as well as links to other websites.

e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia

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Photo, Deck of playing cards from the S.S. Avalon, Michael Keller, e-WV
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Take some time on this guide to all things West Virginia. This website offers a plethora of articles from "Abolitionism" to "John Zontini." To aid your search, you can sort through articles by topical category, alphabetical order, selecting "random article," or running a keyword search for specific interests. Your search will return media as well as text results, nicely sorted into separate categories. Articles are brief, but cross-referenced; and they also include citations and images, when available and appropriate.

The encyclopedia also includes larger sets of information and images referred to as exhibits. Topics include steamboats, John Henry, the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy, the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, coal mining, historic preservation, the Swiss community of Helvetia, the Greenbrier resort, and labor. A similar feature offers a handful of historical West Virginia maps.

Want something more interactive? Try the thematic 10-question quizzes, forums, or interactive maps and timelines.