Using contemporary newspaper accounts, eyewitness testimonies, photographs, maps, drawings, and later texts, this site presents "narrative threads" linking the events leading up to John Brown's raid in 1859 on the Harper's Ferry arsenal to "the latent history of life in the two Shenandoah Valley towns of Staunton, Virginia, and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania." Includes 13 issues of newspapers from the towns; five eyewitness accounts ranging from 2,500 to 9,800 words in length; 30 images of the Brown family members and conspirators; approximately 25 additional photos, published drawings, and maps; a brief listing of Brown's day-to-day movements during the latter half of 1859; and short biographical entries of up to 500 words on each conspirator. This site, parts of which are presently under construction, will be of special interest to teachers who want to use contemporary images and written accounts in their classes on Brown and abolitionism, and for those looking to investigate local history perspectives on events of national importance.

This site was created by Idaho State University professors Mike Trinklein and Steve Boettcher as a companion to their PBS documentary, The Oregon Trail. The website describes the history of the Trail and the settlers who used it to migrate to the Oregon Territory beginning in the early 1840s. It is divided into five sections: general information about the history of the Oregon Trail; historic sites along the Trail; facts and statistics; full-text archive; and "Shop the Oregon Trail." The archive includes full texts of seven diaries, two letters, nine memoirs, and five period books about journeys along the Trail.

The site also contains roughly 30 video clips of historians discussing the history of the Trail and a virtual field trip of the Trail's top sites. There is an online teacher's guide that was designed as a companion to the documentary video, but its discussion topics and activities can be adapted for classroom use. The site is easy to navigate and has a keyword search feature.

Presents 108 sound recordings produced in the mid- to late 1890s by pioneer recording manufacturer and inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929) as well as more than 400 additional items from the inventor's papers. Berliner, based in Washington, D.C., developed the microphone, the gramophone player, and the flat recording disc. The recordings on the site—each averaging about two minutes in length and available in Real Audio, MP3, and WAV formats—include Western music (band and orchestra, instrumentalists, popular music vocalists and vocal groups, classical and opera, and foreign language songs), spoken word selections (comedy, speeches, addresses), and a variety of ghost songs and dances of Native American peoples recorded by ethnologist James Mooney. Selections include Buffalo Bill Cody's "Sentiments on the Cuban Question," recorded in April 1898; John Philip Sousa's band; humorist Cal Stewart relating one of his popular "Uncle Josh" stories; and Victor Herbert's 22nd Regiment Band.

Most of the other items—articles, books, catalogs, clippings, correspondence, diaries, lectures, notes, pamphlets, patents, photographs, scrapbooks, and speeches—are from the 1870s to the early 1930s. Also includes a 23-title bibliography, links to eight related sites, a timeline, a family tree, and three informative essays (2,000-4,000 words) on Berliner's life, the history of the gramophone, and the Library's collection of Berliner recordings. A valuable site for those studying the beginnings of the recording industry, turn-of-the-century popular culture, and the milieu of American inventors in the period from the 1870s to the Great Depression.

This is a selection of some of the more than 4,300 items in the papers of conductor and composer Irving Fine (1900-1962). Material includes a 700-word biographical sketch and illustrated timeline of Fine's life. There are 57 photographs of Fine, including six with Aaron Copland, and six of Fine conducting at Tanglewood. Visitors may listen to the first and second movements of Fine's 1952 String Quartet, about eight minutes each, and may observe the composer at work by looking at five facsimiles of sketches for the score. These include a full 53-page score, a 43-page sketchbook, a 41-page pencil sketch, a 3-page draft of an incomplete and abandoned third movement, and a one-page row chart. A finding aid describes the rest of the collection, which includes personal and business correspondence, additional sketchbooks, press clippings, programs, and recordings. Visitors may search by keyword, browse photographs, or browse the five musical sketches. A bibliography lists seven articles by Fine, as well as two books, six articles, and seven dissertations about him. Useful for researchers interested in American classical music and cultural history.

This site provides more than 2,500 musical scores, mostly published in the United States from 1790 to 1895, drawn from the Edward I. Keffer Collection. The collection is particularly strong in music by Philadelphia artists like Benjamin Carr, Benjamin Cross, and Alexander Reinagle. Although most of the works are American popular songs and piano music, there are also works by famous European composers, operas, and music for other instruments. The site also includes 867 illustrations from the sheet music. All music and illustrations are searchable by topic, composer or lithographer, and publisher. The site includes a list of three related collections at the University of Pennsylvania, three related websites, and a bibliography of 18 related scholarly works. The site is ideal for those interested in 19th-century American music and popular culture.

More than 55,000 color images of tobacco advertisements from litigated cases, dating back to 1909, are now available on this site, created as a stipulation of the Master Settlement Agreement between the tobacco industry and various states' attorneys general. In addition, more than 26 million pages of documents concerning "research, manufacturing, marketing, advertising and sales of cigarettes, among other topics" are provided in linked sites to the four tobacco companies involved—Philip Morris, R. J. Reynolds, Lorillard, and Brown and Williamson—and to two industry organizations, the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research. Ads and documents can be accessed by date, brand name, title words, and persons mentioned, among other searchable fields. Images can be magnified and rotated. An important site for those studying the historical uses of advertising to promote smoking and those with a more general interest in some of the motifs in ad texts and images that have become part of 20th-century American life.

This site considers which "of the more than 110 million items in the Library of Congress" are considered "treasures." The items in the exhibit are organized into the categories of Memory (History), Reason (Philosophy), and Imagination (Fine Arts), as was the personal library of Thomas Jefferson, which became the core of the Library of Congress.

The exhibit, which offers images of original documents as well as explanatory essays, contains such items as Jefferson's "original rough draft" of the Declaration of Independence, Jedediah Hotchkiss's Civil War maps, Edison's Kinetoscopic record of a sneeze, and Earl Warren's handwritten notes concerning the Miranda decision.

Visitors can explore family life in Illinois from 1700 to the present in this site based on a 1992 museum exhibit. The site is divided into six time periods, each featuring biographical sketches providing "glimpses into the lifestyles and domestic situations of real people" at critical moments in Illinois and American history.

In addition, each period contains audio components; timelines; maps; examples of material culture; exercises comparing the lifestyles and experiences of various racial, ethnic, and economic groups; methodological explanations; and teaching aides such as grade-specific lesson plans, discussion ideas, classroom activities, and links to related sites.

Activities can be accessed at three levels of difficulty: Level I (grades 3-5), Level II (grades 6-9), and Level III (grades 10-12). A valuable resource for teachers interested in exposing students social history.

An examination of the life and work of cowboys (or "buckaroos") in the ranching community of Paradise Valley in northern Nevada, with a focus on the "family-run" Ninety-Six Ranch, a concern dating back to the mid-19th century. Features 42 motion pictures and 28 sound recordings of the Ranch, and approximately 2,400 photographs documenting "the people, sites, and traditions in the larger community of Paradise Valley, home to persons of Northern Paiute Indian, Anglo-American, Italian, German, Basque, Swiss, and Chinese heritage." Created for the most part with materials produced during a 1978-1982 ethnographic field research project by the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center. Includes a 2,500-word history of the Ninety-Six Ranch; a 15,000-word essay on ranching life by the project director, Howard W. "Rusty" Marshall; an extensive glossary of terms; four maps of the region; and a bibliography consisting of 60 entries. A well-designed site that introduces users to many aspects of ranch life and culture.

This site introduces the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML), an organization located at the City University of New York (CUNY) that "seeks to revitalize interest in history by challenging the traditional ways that people learn about the past," with a particular emphasis on labor history and social history. The site includes information about ASHP/CML books, documentary films, CD-ROMs, Internet projects, and educational programs, as well as five articles by staff members and numerous links to history resources.

"Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl: Immigrant Women in the Turn-of-the-Century City" presents selected photographs, illustrations, and accompanying short explanatory texts intended for use with a ASHP/CML documentary of the same name. Among the Project's current endeavors is "an intellectual and spatial exploration of P. T. Barnum's American Museum," entitled The Lost Museum, which burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1865. With the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, ASHP/CML produces History Matters.