Homepage for Mt. Vernon Estate and Gardens, George Washington's Virginia estate, this site offers valuable sources for researching the life and home of the first U.S. President. An exhibit contains more than 50 images of furniture, art, documents, and other Mount Vernon household objects. Each image is accompanied by a 150-word description of the artifact and its location or significance to the estate. A virtual tour of Mt. Vernon's mansion takes visitors through every room with a photograph and 350-word description of the room and its furnishings. An archaeology section describes digs at eight sites on the estate, a 500-word description of a current excavation of Washington's distillery, and a 1500-word essay on the Mt. Vernon mansion's restoration beginning in 1858. An Educational Resources section offers a fifth-grade lesson plan, complete with trivia about Washington, excerpts from his Rules on Civility, and anecdotes from his military career and presidency; a 2000-word essay on Washington's attitude toward slavery and information on his slaves' lives, including links to a facsimile copy of Washington's 1798 slave census and 18 images of paintings and artifacts depicting the everyday lives of Mt. Vernon's slaves. This site is ideal for researching Washington's life and home, and it could also be useful for those studying material culture and archaeology.

President Thomas Jefferson worked on designing his estate, Monticello, throughout much of his adult life, drawing heavily on classical architecture as well as the French architecture he became acquainted with during his time in Paris in the 1780s. This website presents an interactive map of Monticello, at its height a 5,000 acre plantation—its buildings, fields, orchards, and slave quarters—providing a window into Jefferson's domestic life.

Visitors can click on one of more than 25 locations on the Plantation, and see a short explanation of that place's function, as well as a small selection of current and historical photographs and documents pertaining to that location, including some of Jefferson's original building plans. Visitors can then virtually move inside Monticello itself through a 3-D tour of Jefferson's home, accompanied by text highlighting the social function of each room.

Also offered are virtual tours of the house, highlighting domestic life at Monticello and Jefferson's relationship with farming and gardening. Each of these tours is accompanied by a useful video introducing these topics and providing other background information about Jefferson's life and work.

This wealth of historical materials, in a variety of formats, addresses Abraham Lincoln's years in Illinois (1831–1860) and Illinois history during the same period. The website provides more than 2,300 transcriptions of documents, including correspondence, speeches, treaties, and other official papers. In addition, there are 295 images of Lincoln, his family, friends, associates, and contemporaries, as well as Illinois towns, homes, and businesses, and 63 recordings of songs.

Materials are organized into eight thematic sections: African American Experience and American Racial Attitudes; Economic Development and Labor; Frontier Settlement; Law and Society; Native American Relations; Politics; Religion and Culture; and Women's Experience and Gender Roles. Each theme includes a background essay, relevant documents and images, video discussions by prominent historians, and narrated slide shows. "Lincoln's Biography" divides his life into eight segments with a summary and biographical text by scholars, as well as a bibliography.

This is a companion site to a 1999 National Museum of American History exhibit of Fred J. Maroon's photographs taken during the last four years of Richard M. Nixon's presidency. Maroon, a freelance photographer known for his images of Washington's monuments and landscapes, recorded Nixon's presidency from 1970, through the 1972 reelection campaign and the Watergate controversy, to the impeachment hearings and Nixon's resignation in 1974. The site is divided into four chronologically-arranged sections. The "White House" contains photographs taken in 1970 and 1971 while Maroon worked on a behind-the-scenes book about the White House Staff; "Reelection" records images of Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign; "Hearings" offers photographs of the White House staff during the Watergate crisis and impeachment hearings; and "Final Days" captures the events leading up to Nixon's resignation in 1974. The site offers more than 25 images selected from the museum exhibit as well as a timeline of the Nixon presidency from 1968 to 1974 and a 200-word biography of Maroon. For those interested in Watergate and the Nixon administration, this is a good site.

The Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division selected this set of 156 portraits of presidents and first ladies from those items in the division's file of popular demand images for which no copyright restrictions are known.

Popular subjects, such as images of inaugurations and the White House, are included, as are such perennial favorites as Abraham Lincoln with Sojourner Truth, Calvin Coolidge at a baseball game, Warren G. Harding with his lively dog Laddie, and Dwight D. Eisenhower with American paratroopers in England.

The first ladies' portraits depict 36 wives of 35 presidents.

The collection is primarily illustrative.

The Library of Congress is a well-known and respected content source for the classroom. However, given the wide variety of collections, searching for items on a given topic can be time-consuming. This website links visitors to the library's September 11 resources by collection, so there's no need to run multiple searches.

First and foremost, the website is dated. However, this is no reason to assume that it is without worthwhile content. The exhibit and memorial events it advertises are long past, so the exhibition overview and public programs sections are only useful as primary sources. That said, the collection links are the heart of the site. The American Folklife Center offers a video presentation on the Library of Congress's personal account collection and three drawings by children. For a small collection of chapbooks, a poster, and newspaper clippings, try the Area Studies/Overseas Field Offices collection. The Geography and Map Division provides aerial and fly-through views of the Twin Towers site, while the Prints and Photographs Division's offerings are the most extensive, with posters, fine art, photography, architectural proposals for new World Trade Center designs, political cartoons, and comic book art. Rare Book and Special Collections houses only two photographs of Kitty Caparella's book art, The Message; while the Serial and Government Publications Division's page holds three U.S. newspaper pages announcing the attacks and a video on the Library of Congress's 9/11 newspaper collection.

While the resources are limited, educators who need to find 9/11 materials quickly should consider taking a few minutes on this Library of Congress portal site, particularly if they are interested in items from the Prints and Photographs Division.

A 28-page study, including charts, of 1960 census data compiled according to residence areas, or "tracts," within the cities of Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Also provides census data for 1940 and 1950 with regard to Chicago and Detroit. Offers raw data and percentage computations on total population of tracts, number of males and females, African-American ethnicity, foreign origin, age, marital status, income level, education, units of substandard housing, rent amounts, employment figures, and salary levels. Also provides medical-related data, such as numbers of hospitals, hospital beds, pharmacists, and types of physicians in each tract. Of use for those studying mid-20th-century urban history. See "History Matters" entry Data and Program Library Service: Online Data Archive for information on other social science studies available at this site.

Presents the diary of officer George Percival Scriven (1854-1940), part of the U.S. Army's occupation of Bohol--a Philippine island--from 1900 to 1902. "The journal was written partly as a personal memoir and partly as a draft of notes for a book that he was planning on writing." A background essay of 6,000 words on the occupation and one of 350 words on Scriven furnish the context for this valuable document, which is accompanied by 25 photographs from four other Duke University collections. This site also offers six links to related sites. Useful as a description of Philippine life through the eyes of an American soldier and for its first-hand account of the surrender by the President of the Provisional Republic of Bohol to American troops.

An exhibit devoted to William Grant Still (1895-1978), "the first African-American composer to have a symphony performed by an American orchestra." Includes annotations on more than 100 documents relating to his life and work, such as articles by Still, correspondence, scores, audio clips, programs, photographs, newspaper reviews, and testimonials. Also provides a complete discography, bibliography of 80 titles, and timeline of the "cultural connections" fostered by Still and his music. Of value to those with a specific interest in Still's life, work, and cultural milieu, and to students of 20th-century classical music and the experience of African-American artists in general.