Sponsored by the Papers of George Washington, housed at the Alderman Library, University of Virginia, this is a companion site to the ambitious project of collecting, editing, and publishing Washington's papers. Begun in 1969, the project has completed 44 of a projected 90 volumes of papers. The site gives information on the letterpress editions of Washington's papers and provides some online excerpts from the volumes. The "Maps and Images" section offers ten of Washington's maps and sketches and nine images of George and Martha Washington, family members, and Mt. Vernon, their home. The "Documents and Articles" section features 31 primary documents, including Washington's 1796 Farewell Address and his last will and testament. It also provides links to 21 full-text scholarly articles on Washington's life and political and military careers. An index of names of persons identified in the papers, along with the volume and page numbers on which the names appear is uesful for researchers. As a special feature, the site also provides full-text images of Washington's handwritten notations to the Constitutional Convention's draft of the Constitution. This site provides a good introduction into the papers of one of the United States' Founders.

In April 2000, the Gerald R. Ford Library released approximately 40,000 pages of classified documents concerning the Vietnam War. Many are from National Security Advisors Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft and their staffs and deal with the decision to evacuate U.S. forces from Vietnam in April 1975. This site provides 15 samples of the newly declassified material, 27 additional documents related to the war already available, 17 photographs of Ford and his advisors during meetings, and finding aids for those planning to travel to the Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The sample documents include important memos, letters, and cables regarding corruption in South Vietnam; "ominous developments" by the North Vietnamese reported to Kissinger in March 1975; the evacuation decision and its execution; the seizure of the U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez by a Cambodian gunboat crew in May 1975; the plight of Vietnamese refugees; "lessons of the war" imparted to Ford by Kissinger; and notes from Scowcroft to Ford on the then-ongoing reconstruction of Cambodian society by the Khmer Rouge. This site will be valuable for those teaching courses on the Vietnam War and its aftermath and the internal workings of the Ford Administration.

Visitors to this site are invited to learn about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln primarily through artifacts and relics in the collection of the Chicago Historical Society. More than 100 images of artifacts, documents, photographs, and lithographs, in addition to more than 50 quotes from contemporary testimonies, illustrate how examination of a variety of types of evidence can help to illuminate events from the past. In addition, the site presents the story of Charles Gunther, a Chicago confectioner who purchased a Richmond prisoner-of-war camp and reconstructed it in Chicago in order to display his growing collection of Americana, which the Society acquired upon his death. The site also includes two videos on techniques of examining material evidence; audio recordings of tunes from the period and a musical tribute to Lincoln that was performed at his Chicago funeral; a registry of 29 Lincoln relics in the Society's collection; a glossary of 11 technical and historical terms; a bibliography of more than 130 published sources; listings for 28 related sites; and a virtual tour of the Society's Conservation Laboratory. Of interest to students of the Lincoln assassination, the history of museums and Americana collectors, and to those intrigued by the use of material culture to help answer questions about the past.

This collection of essays about the history of the U.S. Senate begins with a brief overview (900 words). More than 140 "historical minutes" (300 words) discuss interesting events in the Senate from 1789 to 1980. Events include the caning of Charles Sumner in 1856, the 1914 ban on smoking in the Senate chamber, and a 1935 Huey Long filibuster. The complete texts of 15 oral histories, of 40 to 700 pages, of retired senators and Senate staff members are available and 15 others may be ordered. The oral histories cover 1910 to 1984 and deal with a wide range of issues, including the desegregation of the staff, the McCarthy hearings, preparations to impeach Nixon, rhetorical rules of debate, and the impact of computers on the work of the senate. Staff members include pages, the Sergeant at Arms, aides, administrative assistants, and the first African-American Government Documents Clerk. A collection of 26 essays (500 to 3000 words) discuss Senate procedure, leadership, officers of the Senate, and general information, such as the development of the oath of office. Other essays include 2,400 words on the president pro-tempore and a 1,300 word essay on the 1959 committee, chaired by John F. Kennedy, that designated the five most outstanding senators in American history.

The site also includes a section of frequently asked questions about the Senate and links to a directory that provides a 150-word biography of every senator and vice president as well as many congress people and staff members. Statistics about majority and minority leaders and the practice of switching parties are also provided. The minutes of Senate Republican Conferences from 1911 to 1964 and Senate Democratic Conferences from 1903 to 1964 are available in their entirety. Visitors may also read the full texts of eight lectures given by statesmen, such as George Bush and Senator Robert C. Byrd as part of the Leaders Lectures series established in 1988 by Trent Lott. The site is easy to navigate and will be useful for research in the history of American political institutions.

Part of a larger "Famous Trials" website created by Douglas Linder of the University of Missouri, Kansas City, Law School, this site provides primary documents and other information on the Salem Witch Trials of 1692-93. Linder authored a roughly 1000-word essay on the events in Salem that includes links to biographies of key figures in the trial. The site also offers 18 primary documents concerning the witch trials, including the Reverend Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences, a pamphlet that details an episode of supposed witchcraft by a woman named Goody Glover; an arrest warrent from 1692; seven transcripts of examinations and trial records for accused witches and a sample death warrent. The site also includes approximately 500-word biographies of 17 key figures in the trials, such as accused witches, judges, accusers, and clergy. In addition, there are 14 images of the town of Salem and key figures in the trials. The site offers links to eight related websites and a bibliography of 22 scholarly books and articles and two videos on witchcraft. This site has no index, but is small enough to navigate easily. It is ideal for researching basic information on the Salem Witch trials.

This site, created by Professor Emeritus Leslie V. Brock, deals with the study of American colonial currency. During the colonial period, each colony issued its own paper money, which caused considerable conflict with Britain in the 18th century. This site contains five full-text 18th-century pamphlets on colonial economic and currency issues from 1720 to 1749; ten other contemporary writings about the economic situation in the colonies, including sermons, currency acts, and letters to Britain's Board of Trade, the governing body for colonial economic issues. The site also offers one article and excerpts from a book by scholars of colonial economy, and links to six other scholarly essays on similar topics. There are links to ten tables from Brock's book, Colonial Currency, Prices, and Exchange Rates, as well as a very thorough bibliography of over 70 scholarly works on colonial economies. Additionally, the site offers a link to a site that provides images with roughly 100-word explanations of over 150 species of paper currency, lottery tickets, and fiscal documents from the 18th-century Anglo-American colonies and links to 14 other sources of information on monetary history. This is an ideal source for teaching and researching the colonial economies and money in 18th-century America.

This site, created by a graduate student at the University of Virginia, provides a useful introductory and historical overview for the persistent stereotype of "poor white trash," a subject not unknown but surely under-studied. An 8,000-word essay, divided into five sections—"media," "religion," "race," "lifestyle" and "work"—forms the core of the site, though readers will find a handful of illustrations and pictures in each section. "Media" is best developed and most interesting. There author Angel Price has written about "Lil'Abner" and other comic strips, television programs such as the "Dukes of Hazzard," and works of literature that have both fostered and refuted images of poor white men and women. A handful of primary documents are also presented here, including brief selections by 19th-century humorists Augustus Longstreet and Simon Suggs. Readers will find, too, the full text of historian Henry Nash Smith's classic book, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. The background text, which draws from 29 scholarly and popular sources, is uneven yet generally reliable, particularly useful for students unacquainted with the topic. The site is somewhat difficult to read, owing to a dark navigating bar at the bottom.

This site incorporates 679 excerpts from original sound recordings and more than 1200 photographs from the Library of Congress American Folklife Center's Coal River Folklife Project (1992-1999). These materials document traditional uses of mountains in southern West Virginia's Big Coal River Valley as common land for hunting, gardening, mining, and timbering. It includes interviews on native forest species, traditional harvesting, storytelling, river baptisms, and other special occasions celebrated in the valley's commons. Forty brief (approximately 500-word) interpretive texts outline the social, historical, economic, and cultural contexts of community life in the valley; eight maps and more than 150 photographs illustrate these community activities. Captions (roughly 25-word) describe the more than 1200 images contained on the site, which is keyword searchable and browsable by subject, geographic location, photograph title, and audio title. This site would be of interest to those researching rural American life and folkways.

Yet another fine production from the American Memory Collection at the Library of Congress, this site was created to celebrate the centennial of composer Aaron Copland's birth. The site offers a selection of over 1000 items and 5000 images drawn from over 400,000 items in the Copland Collection of the Library's Music Division. Items in the online exhibit include music sketches, correspondence, writings, and photographs spanning 1899-1981, but primarily drawn from the 1920s to 1950s. In addition to these items the site also includes a roughly 3000-word essay on Copland's life and works with 12 photographs of Copland and a timeline of the artist's life and accomplishments from his birth in 1900 to his death in 1990. Leonard Bernstein's 1000-word article on Copland from the 1970 High Fidelity/Musical America issue and five 300-word tributes to Copland on his 75th birthday, published in the 1975 Schwann-1 Record and Tape Guide are also included. Visitors may search the site by keyword or browse alphabetical listings of musical sketches, writings, correspondence, photographs, titles, and works. This is a useful site for students and teachers interested in the history of American music and the lives of American composers.

More than 240 items dealing with African-American history from collections of the Library of Congress, including books, government documents, manuscripts, maps, musical scores, plays, films, and recordings. The exhibition explores black America's quest for political, social, and economic equality from slavery through the mid-20th century. Organized into nine chronological periods covering the following topics: slavery; free blacks in the antebellum period; antislavery movements; the Civil War and African-American participation in the military; Reconstruction political struggles, black exodus from the South, and activism in the black church; the "Booker T. Washington era" of progress in the creation of educational and political institutions during a period of violent backlash; World War I and the postwar period, including the rise of the Harlem Renaissance; the Depression, New Deal, and World War II; and the Civil Rights era. Each section includes a 500-word overview and annotations of 100 words in length for each object displayed. In addition to documenting the struggle for freedom and civil rights, the exhibit includes celebratory material on contributions of artists, writers, performers, and sports figures. Valuable for students and teachers looking for a well-written and documented guide for exploring African-American history.