This lecture, created by the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, traces the history and status of African Americans in Illinois, beginning with the early years of North American exploration and continuing on to the Civil War.
This iCue Mini-Documentary describes how, after the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks filled local and national offices, but white southerners were determined to pass new state laws to curtail this progress.
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Scanned images of more than 18,000 pieces of sheet music, including covers, published prior to 1923 are presented on this website. The collection, compiled by an American musicologist, covers the period 17801980 but focuses on 19th-century popular music, especially songs relating to military conflicts, presidents, romance, transportation, and songs from the minstrel stage.
Users may search for songs on hundreds of topics such as drinking, smoking, fraternal orders, the circus, and death, or look for composers, song titles, or other catalog record data. Descriptions by the collector of significant songs in 38 topical categories are also available. These materials are useful for studying 19th- and early 20th-century popular culture, especially depictions of ethnicity, gender, and race.