Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier: The Henry Reed Collection

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Photo, Josh and Henry Reed, 1903
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Henry Reed of Glen Lyn, Virginia, was a legendary fiddler of traditional Virginia Appalachian folk tunes. In 1966 and 1967, folklorist Alan Jabbour recorded Reed's music, and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress makes 184 of these sound recordings available through this American Memory online exhibit. The sound recordings are accompanied by 200-250-word descriptions of the history and origins of each musical piece, along with information regarding the features, genre, instrumentals, performers, location, and date of each recording. The site also includes 19 pages of field notes and images and transcripts listing the songs, including bullet-point notes about Reed's life and musical contributions. There are 69 transcriptions of musical pieces with roughly 150-word descriptive notes on the tune histories and musical features. A 3500-word essay about Reed's life and influence on fiddle music includes eight photographs. A bibliography lists over 200 related scholarly and journalistic publications on Reed's music and folk music in general, and the site also includes a list of approximately 70 musical terms. This site is ideal for investigating American folk culture and music, as well as the 20th-century resurgence of fiddle music.

Florida Folklife from the WPA Collections, 1937-1942

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Photo, Fisherman in Key West
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From 1937 to 1942, members of the Florida Writers Project, the Florida Music Project, and the Joint Center on Folk Arts of the Works Project Administration documented the wide variety of cultures throughout Florida through the folk songs and folk tales of the African-American, Arabic, Bahamian, British-American, Cuban, Greek, Italian, Minorcan, Seminole, and Slavic peoples living in Florida. The American Memory Project at the Library of Congress now offers a selection of the multiformat ethnographic field collection that represents these diverse cultures. The online exhibit includes 376 sound recordings of folk songs such as blues, fishing boat and railroad gang work songs, children's songs, dance music, and religious music. Each recording includes descriptive information on the duration of the sound clip, where the piece was performed and the performers involved, brief (10-15 words) special notes about the piece, ethnic group(s) represented, language(s) in which the piece was performed, instrumentation, and when and where the piece was created.

The collection also includes 24 "life history" interviews of Floridians from specific ethnic backgrounds, 65 images and transcripts of correspondence, two recording logs, and 25 transcriptions of song texts. Two 2000-word essays on Florida folklife and the Works Project Administration in Florida help to contextualize the online exhibit. Also included are a bibliography of over 120 scholarly works, a list of 18 related websites, and a 1000-word guide to the ethnic and language groups of Florida. Visitors can browse this site by performer, audio or manuscript title, and geographic location. For those interested in folk life and culture, Florida history, and the variety of WPA projects during the New Deal, this easily navigable site is a good resource.

Knowing Poe

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Graphic interface, Knowing Poe
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This site provides an interactive and engaging examination of the life and death of Edgar Allan Poe. The interactive "It'll Be the Death of Me" section walks visitors through the various explanations of Poe's mysterious death. It asks the viewer to make choices, and directs them based on the decisions they make. The "Point of View" feature uses Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado" to illustrate the effect of point-of-view in literature. Viewers choose to read the story from the point of view of Fortunato, Montresor, or a narrator.

Although this is not an archive of Poe's work, it nonetheless provides access to about a dozen of his stories and 16 primary documents. Many of Poe's writings are annotated on this site, allowing students to compare first, second, and third drafts of "The Lake," or to analyze the rhyme scheme of "The Raven." Another interactive feature allows visitors to examine the melody of Poe's poem, "The Bells." Visitors control the voice of the reader (male or female, emotive or monotonic), add or delete sound effects and background music, and then listen to the creation to see how those factors affect the emotional impact of poetry. "Talking About Poe" allows visitors to leave messages for other users.

Free Speech Movement: Student Protest, U.C. Berkeley, 1964-65

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Photo, "Mario Savio Speaking at FSM Rally," Ben Ailes?, October 2, 1984
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The Bancroft Library has put its entire archive of material on the Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM) online. A 200-word chronology introduces visitors to the major events of the movement. Printed material includes five books, 29 leaflets (200 to 3,000 words each) produced by the FSM, 55 letters to and from FSM activists, 11 local radical newsletters, 36 statements, 21 press releases, and six speeches made by students and university faculty and administration. Visitors may read complete transcripts of 10 oral histories of between 85 and 1,000 pages: eight with university administrators and faculty; two with FSM activists. A collection of legal documents includes 40 pages of trial transcripts and 400 letters from FSM activists to Judge Rupert Crittenden, who presided over their trials.

This site also provides researchers with the first public access to 96 photographs of FSM rallies and sit-ins taken by Ronald L. Enfield in 1964 and 1965. Materials from related organizations include 63 documents from nine contemporary protest movements at Berkeley. The site may be searched by subject, but is somewhat difficult to navigate because pages within the collection do not link directly to an index or the collection's home page. The site will be most useful to experienced researchers.

Florida Heritage Collection

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Graphic, Florida Heritage Collection
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This project provides a collection of more than 280 digitized materials documenting the history of Florida from pre-contact to the present. It includes materials relating to Florida history, culture, arts, literature, and social sciences in a number of major thematic areas, including Native American and minority populations, exploration and development, tourism, natural environment, and regional interests. These materials are drawn from the archives, special collections, and libraries of the 10 state universities in the Florida system.

Items include family papers, local history books and booklets, diaries, advertising materials, and Civil War letters, business records, maps, and photographs. Many of the materials are regional or local in scope.

The site also includes an extensive (5000-word) Florida history narrative timeline from pre-contact (before 1492) to the present. A user guide and tutorial are provided, and the documents are searchable by county name, keyword, subject, author, or title. The search engine has an option for listing either electronic holdings only or all collection holdings under a particular subject. Entries in the electronic catalog include the archive in which the original is located as well as a 20-word description of the item and its contents.

Note that a few links are still under construction with no completion date indicated. The site is ideal for researching Florida's state and local history.

Belgian-American Research Collection

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Photo, Alex Parins farm, Woman displaying lay of the bricks, 1976
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Designed to document the presence of Belgian immigrants in three Wisconsin counties, this site contains a variety of primary and secondary sources. Legal documents, diaries, letters, photographs, and oral histories are included, totaling some 1,500 resources. The site includes 400 architectural surveys, 54 oral histories (many given in Walloon, a primarily oral French patois spoken by generations of Belgian immigrants to Wisconsin), and approximately 500 pages of Immigration Histories.

The entire collection (with the exception of a few documents that have defied OCR translation) is searchable by keyword and can be browsed. This is a unique collection of primary sources, easily accessed, and usable by students, teachers, or researchers.

Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America

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Portrait, Final portrait of Alexander Hamilton
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This exhibition details the life of Alexander Hamilton. Born in the British West Indies in 1745, Hamilton served as an aide to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He was the first Secretary of the Treasury, also under George Washington, before being killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. This site offers a short, 20-question quiz on Hamilton's life, a timeline of the important events and accomplishments of his life, and a virtual tour, narrated by Hamilton scholar Richard Brookhiser.

A document viewer allows visitors to view five documents written in Hamilton's own hand, including a love letter to his wife. A log allows visitors to see what Hamilton was doing on selected days between 1783 and his death in 1804. A set of interactive maps allows viewers to select sites in New York City and New Jersey, and learn of their significance in Hamilton's life and American history. The site offers an entertaining and substantive introduction to an influential founding father.

Connecticut History Online

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Photo, Captain George Comer of East Haddam in rigging..., 1907
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This site is a collaborative effort between the Connecticut Historical Society, the Thomas H. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut, and the Mystic Seaport Museum, funded by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It offers approximately 14,000 images depicting Connecticut's history from the beginning of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century.

The images are divided into categories: "Artifacts," "Manuscripts and Documents," Maps, Charts, and Bird's-eye Views," "Newspapers and Magazines," "Photographs, Prints, and Drawings," "Posters/Broadsides," and "Sound Recordings and Transcripts." Each image includes notes on the creator, date, and place created, medium, repository information, and a brief (40-word) description of the subject. Visitors can search the site by keyword, subject, creator, title, and date.

The site also includes four sample lesson plans for middle school classes comparing and contrasting two Connecticut families and the roles of men and women through exercises interpreting the site's images, a list of ideas for future topics, and themes for secondary-level classrooms. This site is ideal for teachers and students interested in the history of Connecticut and its communities.

Bethlehem Digital History Project

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Oil on canvas, Johannetta Ettwein, John Valentine Haidt, 1754
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This collection of materials addresses the Moravian community of Bethlehem, PA, from its founding in 1741 to 1844, when the community first opened to non-Moravians. Most documents are available in three formats: facsimile of original in German type, transcription, and translation into English. All documents may be read in English.

A 650-word essay introduces visitors to Bethlehem history. The community kept a diary that visitors may read for the years 1742 to 1745. The Journal of the Commission of the Brethren of Bethlehem, from 1752 to 1760, allows further access to the inner workings of the community. The death register currently lists 400-word obituaries for five women and six men. Birth and marriage registers are to be added to the site.

Moravians of this era read memoirs (2,000–3,000 words) at the funerals of community members, sometimes incorporating autobiographical writing. Visitors may read 34 of these memoirs.

The records of the community also include four maps, a survey, and the ledgers of the town finances from 1747 to 1765. Inventories of four shops may also be examined.

Other material includes a 32-page 1876 historical sketch of the Bethlehem Seminary for Young Ladies, a 19-page scholarly essay on the Moravian approach to business, and a 1762 discussion of how to finance the Single Sisters' Choir. Visitors may search the site by subject. The site will be very interesting for research in colonial history and the history of religion in America.

Words and Deeds in American History

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Logo, Words and Deeds in American History
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This site displays approximately 90 primary documents from the 15th century to the mid 20th century. Features eight subjects: the presidency; Congress, law, and politics; military affairs; diplomacy and foreign policy; arts and literature; science, medicine, exploration, and invention; African-American history and culture; and women's history. The collection emphasizes "prominent Americans whose lives reflect our country's evolution," including 23 presidents and figures such as Carter Woodson, Thurgood Marshall, pioneer physician Elizabeth Blackwell, Wilbur Wright, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Each subject is accompanied by a useful 100- to 400-word background essay and a link to the document's host collection. Also includes a 2,000-word essay entitled "Collecting, Preserving, and Researching History: A Peek into the Library of Congress Manuscript Division." Although limited in size, this site provides an eclectic group of documents of national interest.