Kay Cunningham's List: American History

'Underwritten by a "We the People" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Digital Library on American Slavery is a cooperative venture between the Race and Slavery Petitions Project and the Electronic Resources and Information Technology Department of University Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The Digital Library offers a searchable database of detailed personal information about slaves, slaveholders, and free people of color. Designed as a tool for scholars, historians, teachers, students, genealogists, and interested citizens, the site provides access to information gathered and analyzed over an eighteen-year period from petitions to southern legislatures and country courts filed between 1775 and 1867 in the fifteen slaveholding states in the United States and the District of Columbia.'

'The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living. Members of every tribe resident in Oklahoma were interviewed.'

'A comprehensive collection of material about the Presidents of the United States and the history of the presidency. This web site features essays about the President's life before, during, and after each presidential term. It additionally provides information about the First Lady and cabinet officials of each administration. A collection of essays on the President at Work delves into the function, responsibilities, and organization of the modern presidency and traces the history and evolution of presidential duties.'

"Numbering over 10,000 titles, May's pamphlets and leaflets document the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels. Much of the May Anti-Slavery Collection was considered ephemeral or fugitive, and today many of these pamphlets are

"The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States contains material that was compiled and published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration. It includes volumes covering the administrations of Presidents

"a short chronology of events in American history and literature. It is linked to course pages and bibliographies as well as to a set of more general linked resources: pages on American authors, literary movements, and American literature sites."

"a project by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to expand on its mission to provide economic information and data to researchers interested in the U.S.economy. On this web site you will find links to scanned images (in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF format) of historical economic statistical publications, releases, and documents."

MARSBest annotation: "Sponsored jointly by the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), this site provides select digital access to American newspapers from 1880 to 1910 and from mainly ten states. Additionally, access to an invaluable directory of newspapers published in the United States from 1690 to the present is available. The directory can be browsed by title or searched by state, county and city, date, keyword, frequency, language, or type of newspaper. The directory usually offers comprehensive information, such as titles, alternative titles, publication places, geographic coverage, persistent links, publishers, dates of publication, descriptions, frequencies, languages, subjects, general notes, LCCN, OCLC numbers, succeeding titles, and links to holdings."
Author/Publisher: Library of Congress
Free/Fee-based: Free
Date Reviewed: 2/20/09

Newspaper directory of historic American newspapers at the Library of Congress. Digital images available for some.

Video is as much a part of history as text. This online archive presents the video advertising for the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates of the television era, 1952 to the present, along with descriptive matter placing the ads in context. Each election year includes several commericals, a brief text overview of the campaign year, sections for each party's nominee, and a map of election results. Transcripts are available for each commercial as well as full credits and production information. In addition, commercials can be browsed by the category--biographies, ads that utilize fear, that features children, and so on. Requires Adobe Flash Player 8 or above and a screen resolution of 1024x768 or higher. Major Web browsers are supported.
Author/Publisher: Museum of the Moving Image
Free/Fee-based: Free
Reviewer: Kay Cunningham
Date reviewed: 2/15/10

MARSBest annotation: "Established in 1999, this site is valuable for its extensive coverage of both historical and current information on United States presidencies and is easy to navigate. It provides a searchable database of over 85,000 documents, such as speeches, official papers, executive orders, proclamations, news conferences, and press briefings. Various retrieval options are available, including by keywords, dates, document type, and presidents. Additional in depth analyses are offered on topics that may be challenging to locate by other means, such as presidential relations with Congress. Lastly, Quick Time Player videos of important presidential election moments, addresses, and speeches are provided."
Author/Publisher: University of California, Santa Barbara - John Woolley and Gerhard Peters, Collaborators
Free/Fee-based: Free
Date Reviewed: 2/26/09

Website devoted to African American Women writers

"search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present."

Digital collection of primary sources in the Library of Congress, arranged by state

"Aquifer American Social History Online, a project of the Digital Library Federation, provides scholars with access to distributed digital library collections pertaining to 19th and 20th century United States social history. AASHO is available through locally supported tools so that you can find, organize, use, and share items from diverse collections."

Blog of historic photo images, many from Loc. Members can upload their own photos.

"core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance."

By Quintard Taylor. online reference guide to African-American history.