Amateur Athletic Foundation Digital Archive

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For those studying the history of the Olympics, sports history, and the history of leisure and recreation, this website provides more than 45,000 documents (in .pdf format) pertaining to official Olympics history as well as other sports. Complete or partial runs of 10 journals have been digitized, including Journal of Sports History (3,030 articles from 1974–2003), Olympic Review (1901–2003), Baseball Magazine (1909–1918), American Golfer (1908–1911), Golf Illustrated and Outdoor Man (1914–1915), and Outing (1883–1899).

The site also furnishes 58 oral histories of Southern California Olympic athletes and 83 official Olympic Reports from 1896 to 2004. The full text of This Great Symbol: Pierre de Coubertin and the Origins of the Modern Olympic Games by John MacAloon and some recent studies of aspects of sports history are also available. Additions to the site are made regularly.

Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory

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This exhibit commemorates the 125th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire (1871) with an array of primary sources arranged into two sections. "The Great Chicago Fire" examines the fire through five chronological chapters, while a second section, "The Web of Memory," focuses on the ways in which the fire has been remembered. This section presents the story through eyewitness accounts, popular illustrations, journal articles, fiction, poetry, and painting. It also examines the legend of Mrs. O'Leary.

The site furnishes galleries of images and artifacts, primary texts, songs, a newsreel, an “Interactive Panorama of Chicago, 1858," and background essays that explore the social and cultural context of the fire and its aftermath.

Museum of the City of San Francisco

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These 11 exhibits address the history of California and San Francisco. Topics include the Gold Rush of 1849; earthquakes of 1906 and 1989; the history of the city's fire department; construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges; and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. These exhibits provide timelines and links to more than 200 primary documents and images, including newspaper articles, diary entries, oral histories, photographs, political cartoons, and engravings. Two exhibits are hyperlinked chronologies pertaining to San Francisco during World War II and the rock music scene in the city from 1965 to 1969.

Documents can be accessed according to subject, with more than 25 documents listed on the Chinese-American community, fairs and expositions, and labor issues. The site also contains more than 150 biographies of prominent San Franciscans.

September 11 Digital Archive Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/25/2008 - 22:21
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This archive records the histories of people affected by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), including more than 150,000 stories and more than 40,000 emails from around the world. The site is constantly growing and the sources are viewable through galleries. Items include still images, with photographs, digital art, and artwork; moving images, with video files and digital animations; documents, including flyers, reports, and articles; and stories, emails, and voicemails.

The supporting information is strong as well. The FAQ section includes numerous links with information about the chronology and a timeline, including flight paths and building collapses; information about hijackers, victims, and rescuers; memorials and rebuilding efforts; and the 9/11 Commission Report. Visitors are invited to submit their own recollections.

Watergate Revisited

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This is a thorough introduction to the Watergate scandal. Created by the Washington Post, the newspaper whose investigative journalism led to President Richard M. Nixon's downfall, the website provides more than 80 relevant news stories. It also offers links to 20 documents—speeches, tape transcriptions, and Nixon's letter of resignation—in the National Archives and the Nixon Library. A detailed timeline links to Post stories, and brief biographies introduce 26 "key players" in various phases of the scandal.

Users may listen to eight audio clips and view 11 video clips, such as Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech, announcement of his resignation, and farewell to his staff as well as John Dean's testimony. The Post's Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee discuss the scandal in the transcript of a 1997 interview and a video recording of a 2002 forum. The site also includes a link to 20 cartoons by the Post's Herblock, photographs, and an interactive quiz.

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library

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This expansive archive of American history and culture features more than nine million items dating from 1490 to the present. Currently this site includes material from 120 collections, some from libraries and archives around the world.

Strengths include the early republic, with documents and papers on the Continental Congress, U.S. Congress, early Virginia religious petitions, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson; the Civil War, including Abraham Lincoln's papers and Mathew Brady photographs; and exploration and settlement of the West. Collections offer papers of inventors, such as Alexander Graham Bell, Emile Berliner, Samuel F. B. Morse, and the Wright Brothers; and composers, such as Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland.

The site also features New Deal-era documentation projects, such as Farm Security Administration photographs, Federal Writers' Project life histories, the Historic American Buildings Survey, and the Library's own "Man on the Street" interviews following the Pearl Harbor attack. Entertainment history is amply represented with collections on the American Variety Stage, Federal Theatre Project, early cinema, and early sound recordings. African American history, ethnic history, women's history, folk music, sheet music, maps, and photography also are well documented.

Digitized images from materials not included in specific American Memory sites may be searched using the Library's Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, where users can browse images by topic or search the Library's holdings.

The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire

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Created to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake, this exhibit and archive features an extensive collection of primary source material, an interactive map, and a 360-degree view of the damage to the city. The primary sources include thousands of images and text files available, offering more than 8,000 photographs, 500 cityscapes, and 500 letters, as well as a host of additional resources, such as broadsides, oral history texts, periodical articles, photomechanical prints, reports, and stereographs. Visitors can browse the archive by genre or subject or search by keyword, subject, genre, or geographic location.

The exhibit has five galleries, each with several text/photograph displays: San Francisco before the fire; the earthquake; the fire, including a map showing burned districts; the story of refugees and survivors; and reconstruction. The interactive map divides San Francisco into 10 regions, each of which can be browsed or searched for images taken in that region. It also includes 11 aerial cityscape views. The 360-degree panoramic view of San Francisco shortly after the disaster is composed of 11 separate photographs taken from the roof of the Fairmont Hotel.

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Website

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Interactive exhibitions and resources address the Holocaust and related subjects. The site is composed of five sections: education, research, history, remembrance, and conscience.

"Education" introduces the subject of the Holocaust and provides extensive bibliographies. "Research" contains a survivor registry and an international directory of activities relating to Holocaust-era assets. Searchable catalogs pertaining to the Museum's collections and library are easy to navigate to find artworks, artifacts, documents, photographs, films, videos, oral histories, and music. "History" includes the Holocaust Learning Center, with images, essays, and documents on 75 subjects, such as anti-Semitism, refugees, pogroms, extermination camps, and resistance. "Committee on Conscience" contains information on current genocidal practices in Sudan.