The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden

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An engaging exhibit geared especially to schoolchildren, this site provides images, texts, and activities to explore the history and operation of the American presidency. Organized into four sections, the exhibit displays more than 375 images of documents, paintings, photographs, buttons, posters, paraphernalia, and objects along with short texts (50–200 words in length) explaining their significance. The Foundations pertains to the prehistory of the presidency, how the Framers defined responsibilities of the office, and the basic work that the office requires. The Campaign Trail covers the election process. Life and Death in the White House looks at the domestic world of the president, life after leaving office, and assassinations. Communicating the Presidency deals with the press, the entertainment industry, and advertising.

Most impressive are the many suggested activities, lesson plans, and games designed for children of varying ages. A Teacher's Manual contains five lesson plans each for grades 4–6, 7–9, and 10–12. In addition, there are activities for younger children, including analyzing letters between children and five presidents and creating a new official seal. Provides a timeline, bibliography of 88 titles arranged according to age group and exhibit section, and annotated list of 46 links to other sites. Very useful for classroom history and civics courses.

The Star-Spangled Banner

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This exhibit tells the story of "the flag that inspired the National Anthem" through more than 50 images and short texts (50–200 words) explaining their significance. Also presents images from Smithsonian collections to illustrate sections on expressing patriotism, fostering national memory, and how "common cultural symbols, such as the American flag, patriotic songs, presidential images, and monuments, serve to coalesce a common identity among Americans." Elucidates challenges the Smithsonian faces to preserve the flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key's poem.

Provides a teacher's manual in three sections for grades K–2, 3–5, and 6–8 and suggestions for using the site in the classroom. Includes a 10-title reading list, links to 14 related sites, and games designed to stimulate students to use primary sources to investigate "mysteries surrounding this famous flag." A well-conceived site, though modest in size, that will prove useful for K–8 classes.

The Pill

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Designed as a companion to the PBS film, this site documents the development of the birth control pill and its effect on women's health. The site offers a synopsis of the film (approximately 1,000 words) and about a dozen primary sources, including letters between birth control pill researchers. The site also includes a timeline that documents references to birth control as far back in history as Biblical Genesis.

A Gallery showcases approximately 15 birth control pill package designs. People and Events introduces visitors to the researchers (including Margaret Sanger) who dedicated years to the project, as well as milestones in the pill's development. Special Features uses a Flash presentation to demonstrate how the pill works to prevent pregnancy, explores the many shifts in sexual attitudes that have been attributed to the pill, and asks viewers to participate in an online poll.

A Teacher's Guide features lesson plans in geography, civics, history, and society, and presents challenging exercises for students. For example, one exercise asks students to survey the effect geography had on sexual attitudes by comparing laws about contraception from state to state in 1960.

Although the site is not a comprehensive archive, the primary sources and multimedia exhibits make it valuable, especially for research into birth control and women's issues.

TUPPERWARE!

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This site explores the invention and rise of Tupperware products in the 1950s, as well as its impact on women's issues, and its connection to the 20th-century consumer culture revolution. The site focuses on Earl Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware, and Brownie Wise, the woman who created the Tupperware party concept and built a Tupperware empire. Included are short (500-word) biographies of each.

In the Gallery, visitors can see 12 of Tupper's invention notebooks to examine some of his inventions that were not as successful as Tupperware, like his no-drip ice cream cone and his necktie shaper.

The Teacher's Guide offers two learning activities in each of four academic areas: civics, economics, geography, and history. A timeline spans from the 1850s to 2003 and includes events such as the invention of plastic.

Primary Sources includes transcripts of interviews with Tupper and Wise, six video clips from the late 1950s and early 1960s (documenting the annual Tupperware Homecoming Jubilees, which were large gatherings of Tupperware dealers), as well as excerpts from the first Tupperware handbook. Also included are six documents, including a 1960s training manual, How to Sell Tupperware, and a collection of Wise's Aphorisms.

Visitors can share their experiences with Tupperware, either as consumers or as Tupperware dealers, in the Share Your Story section.

Finally, the site features an interview with a noted historian of women's issues who discusses the realities of married women's employment in the 1950s, as well as the impact Tupperware had on women's opportunities.

Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape 1922-1932

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This site offers five exhibits featuring designs by Frank Lloyd Wright's for projects that were never built—a prototypical suburb, two resorts, an automobile objective, and a desert retreat. "Although none was ever realized, they embody Wright's changing views of the fundamental relationship between building and land." Each exhibit is centered on an explanatory essay that ties together images of Wright's designs. The images include hypothetical study models based on Wright's designs and Wright's own preliminary sketches.

"A.M. Johnson Desert Compound" looks at a design Wright planned for the desert compound of Albert Mussey Johnson near Death Valley, CA. "Gordon Strong Automobile Objective" is focused on Wright's designs for a structure atop Sugar Loaf Mountain in Maryland to serve as a motor tourist destination and observation point. "Lake Tahoe Summer Colony" examines Wright's speculative designs for the Lake Tahoe Summer Colony at the head of Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe, featuring floating cabins. "Doheny Ranch Development" explores Wright's designs for a residential development "of unparalleled scale" on the 411-acre ranch property of Edward Doheny outside Beverly Hills, CA. "San Marcus in the Desert" focuses on Wright's designs for a luxurious resort in the desert on 1,400 acres south of Phoenix, AZ, commissioned by a successful developer. Some of the links on the site are no longer functional and there is no search. A website of interest to those researching Frank Lloyd Wright or the history of American architecture.

Jacob Lawrence: Over the Line

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Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000) examined the African American experience through art. This website was created in 2001 to accompany an exhibition exploring his life and work. The website (with a flash version and an html version) provides a straightforward account of Lawrence's life and work accompanied by images.

The site is presented in three parts, "Beginnings," "The Young Artist," and "Over the Line," each organized as a sequence of pages consisting of short descriptions (50 words) and associated images. There are two short audio clips of Lawrence talking about Harlem and color. The images are relatively small and cannot be enlarged.

National Register of Historic Places Travel Itineraries

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San Francisco during World War II, Mississippi's Indian Mounds, and Cumberland, Maryland, are just three of the more than 50 cities, towns, and rivers across the U.S. to which this website provides virtual access. In Baltimore, Maryland, a clickable map allows users to wander from the USCGC Taney (the last surviving warship present at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941) docked at Baltimore's Inner Harbor, to the house where Edgar Allen Poe lived in the mid-1830s, to the Union Square-Hollins Market Historic District to learn about Baltimore's oldest public market still in operation, and on to 40 more sites around the city. Each landmark is introduced with photographs, brief essays providing historical context, and tourist information.

Some travel itineraries are grouped by theme. For example, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement presents information on Arkansas's Little Rock Central High School, Virginia's Robert Moton High School, and the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. Many of these sites includes links to lesson plans in NPS's Teaching With Historic Places. Updated regularly, this website is useful for teachers, students, and tourists alike.

Ohio Memory: An Online Scrapbook of Ohio History

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This wealth of materials—more than 26,000 images in 4,100 collections—comes from 330 archives, libraries, and museums. Together, they document Ohio life, culture, and history from prehistoric times to the recent past. Currently the site provides 2,786 visual items; 768 historical objects, artifacts, or buildings; 106 natural history specimens; 809 published works; and 691 collections of unpublished material. Users can browse or search by word, place, and subject. Displayed materials are presented chronologically on scrapbook pages with 10 selections per page. "Learning Resources," with 22 categories, offers essays of up to 2,000 words illustrated with relevant material. Topics include African Americans, agriculture, American Indians, arts and entertainment, business and labor, civil liberties, daily life, education, immigration and ethnic heritage, government, religion, science and technology, sports, and women.

Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America

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Thomas Jefferson outlined three motivating factors in his instructions to Lewis and Clark: a search for navigable rivers to span the continent; a quest for Edenic beauty and riches; and the competitive desire to acquire a continental empire. These 180 documents and artifacts interpret 19th-century westward exploration from this perspective. The range of materials is striking. In addition to maps, plans, and charts, the site offers images (sketches, watercolors, etchings, and engravings), texts (letters, diaries, speeches, newspapers, and books), and tools (surveying and medical instruments, cooking utensils, armaments). The exhibit opens with an examination of the "imperial mentality" common to Virginia's aristocratic class in the late 18th century and then focuses on the Lewis and Clark journey. It ends with the subsequent expeditions of Zebulon Pike, Stephen H. Long, Charles Wilkes, John Charles Fremont, and the mid-19th century transcontinental railroad plan that supplanted the search for a water route.

Jewish Women's Archive

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These exhibits and resources are valuable for studying American Jewish women's contributions to their communities and the wider world. Women of Valor focuses on 16 notable historic women—including Congresswoman Bella Abzug; radical Emma Goldman; philanthropist Rebecca Gratz; poet Emma Lazarus; actress Molly Picon; Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold; and nurse, settlement worker, and political leader Lillian Wald. Women Who Dared offers oral history interviews of Jewish women activists in text, audio, and video formats. Interviewees discuss activism in the context of Jewish and gender identity, values, and situations, and elucidate the path to activism, challenges, rewards, and impact. The Encyclopedia, browsable by keyword, time period, and country, includes 2,000 articles on Jewish women's history. This Week in History looks at moments in the lives of Jewish American women corresponding to the date; visitors can subscribe to this feature by RSS feed or email. On the Map pinpoints locations important to Jewish American women's history—and to Jewish American women today. Visitors can add their own locations with photos. Jewesses with Attitude, the JWA blog, features articles on Jewish American women past and present and on other topics relevant to the lives of Jewish American women today. The site has also digitized nine volumes of The American Jewess. Most recently, the Jewish Women's Archive has compiled objects, photographs, and personal accounts of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the aftermath, complete with 100 oral histories, blog postings, emails, and other firsthand accounts.