North Carolinians and the Great War: The Impact of World War I on the Tar Heel State
http://docsouth.unc.edu/wwi/index.html
This site is a new addition to the excellent online Documenting the American South collections maintained and designed by the staff of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries. This particular thematic collection examines "how World War I shaped the lives of different North Carolinians on the battlefield and on the home front." Drawing on a number of primary and secondary sources, visitors will want to read a helpful introductory essay located here titled "Carolinians Go to War," written by Professor Michael Sistrom. The site is divided into topical areas, including The Home Front, Propaganda Posters, and The Soldier's Experience, which include both printed materials (such as posters and personal letters) and photographs that add a nice touch to the overall collection. Additionally, there is an image archive which users can browse by subject, ranging from agricultural implements to the transportation industry. [KMG]
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When They Were Young: A Photographic Retrospective of Childhood
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/young/
Culled from the thousands of photographs and negatives contained within their collections, the Library of Congress has created this loving and multifaceted online exhibit of over 70 images that capture the experience of childhood as it is connected across time, different cultures, and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Interspersed with quotations from the Pulitzer-Prize winning author Robert Coles, the photographs contain images taken by such renowned photographers as Edward S. Curtis, Dorothea Lange, and Jack Delano. The portraits of children here include young people in the rural American South during the Great Depression, Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest, farm laborers in Puerto Rico, and African Americans in Harlem. Additionally, there is information about the book produced in conjunction with the exhibit, When They Were Young, authored by Robert Coles. [KMG]
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President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports [.pdf]
http://www.fitness.gov/index.html
The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956 to encourage American children to lead healthier and more active lives. Over the years, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson expanded the Council's mandate, adding emphases on Americans of all ages and a prime focus on sports. Their Web site contains information about some of their most well-known programs, including the President's Sports and Fitness Awards and the President's Challenge. Also, many helpful publications for persons seeking to stay in shape are included here, such as "The Nolan Ryan Fitness Guide" and "Pep Up Your Life: A Fitness Book for Mid-life and Older Persons." Given the rising obesity rates among young people in the United States, guides designed specifically for this group are also offered, including "10 Tips to Healthy Eating and Physical Activity For You," and "Get Fit!: A Handbook for Youth Ages 6-17." [KMG]
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El Rancho Vegas Online Exhibit
http://gaming.unlv.edu/ElRanchoVegas/index.html
The Hotel El Rancho Vegas has a notable place in 20th century American cultural and tourism history as the first full-scale casino on Highway 91, located on what would eventually become known as the "Strip" area, a place where other legendary gaming palaces would spring up, such as the Flamingo and Desert Inn. Created by the UNLV Department of Special Collections, this site documents the history of this storied place, which was built in 1941 and burned down in a spectacular blaze during the summer of 1960. The online exhibit features dozens of images, photographs, and ephemeral items (such as cocktail napkins and "El Rancho Money"), divided into convenient sections titled Casino, Amenities, and Entertainment. The section of the history of the Hotel is quite good, fully complemented by short essays and reminisces about this gaming venue by a variety of authors, including the noted essayist William Saroyan and his less-than fond comments on Les Vegas, which he describes as "a killing nightmare." [KMG]
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The Civil War in Florida: Letters of a New Hampshire Soldier
http://www.library.miami.edu/archives/shedd/index.htm
Developed by the Archives and Special Collections Department of the University of Miami (in collaboration with Dartmouth University), this Web site offers transcriptions of letters composed by Calvin Shedd to his family during the Civil War. Mr. Shedd was a carpenter from New Hampshire who enlisted in the Union Army's Seventh Regiment in 1861, serving for several years, most of which he spent in Florida. The letters contained here present an interesting account of one man's experience in the Union Army, which includes the general tedium that he felt being so far removed from where most of the intense fighting was taking place. The letters also contain many hyperlinks to related subjects and persons, including a complete roster of the New Hampshire Seventh Regiment and images and biographical data of relevant places and people. The site concludes with a page of links to related sites dealing with the Civil War, including other research centers and online photograph and manuscript collections. Overall, this site is an excellent introduction to the everyday life of a Union soldier, one that will be helpful for students hoping to capture a glimmer of the day-to-day routine of a soldier in this period. [KMG]
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Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project
http://digital.lib.msu.edu/cookbooks/
The Michigan State University Library, in partnership with the MSU Museum, have created a fascinating look into American epicurean history with their online trove of influential 19th and early 20th century American cookbooks. Currently, the archive includes page images from 33 cookbooks, and when the project is completed in September 2003, the site will include page images and full-text transcriptions for 75 cookbooks. Visitors to the site will find an excellent introduction to the cookbooks in an introductory essay written by Jan Longone, a curator of American culinary history at the University of Michigan. The cookbooks on the site are divided into topical areas, such as regional, ethnic, and general cookery. Equally helpful is the ability to search the entire cookbook collection by author's name, title, and the complete text. The site concludes with a glossary that explains different terms used in these historic cookbooks, such as pippin and codlin (both types of apples). [KMG]
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The Barren Lands: J.B. Tyrrell's Expeditions for the Geological Survey of Canada, 1892-1894
http://digital.library.utoronto.ca/Tyrrell/
J.B. Tyrrell was a famous Canadian geologist who went on numerous expeditions surveying a large portion of central and eastern Canada in the early 1890s. During these journeys, he and his colleagues created a massive cache of materials that documented the regions they traversed, and the University of Toronto's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library has placed over 5,000 items related to these expeditions online, including images from field notebooks, photographs, maps, and published reports. The digital collection presented here is primarily composed of material describing the Barren Lands expeditions of 1893 and 1894, along with some additional materials from the Hudson Bay expeditions of 1885 and 1900. Searching the collection is facilitated by a search engine that allows full-text searches, in tandem with selecting by type of material, such as diaries, letters, maps, and photographs. Perhaps the finest features of the site are the interactive maps of the four main expeditions, which allow users to click on different parts of the maps and obtain the documents that relate to each geographical area of the journey. [KMG]
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