There are so many wonderful sites out there devoted to historical inquiry, in its many forms. Here are some places worth checking out (to be organized into categories or pages eventually!)
The Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College houses perhaps one of the best collections of women’s and LGBT history. (If you’re lucky enough to be attending Smith, take advantage of their brand new Archives Concentration!) The SSC has thousands of textual and visual documents relating to women’s activism, and in 2008 they opened their Voices of Feminism Oral History Project which includes oral histories conducted with Joan E. Biren (JEB), Loretta Ross, Barbara Smith and Carmen Vázquez.
The University of Houston’s Digital History has many amazing documents relating to American history. Be sure to check out their Life Span map which allows you to select a year on a timeline (from 1590-2011) and see what major events happened within the average life span of a person who lived during that time. Their multimedia Time Machine is also amusing!
The National Archives of Australia can be found here, and it contains (among other things) a copy of John Lennon’s Airport Passenger Card where he seems to have had trouble remembering his marital status.
The National History American History Museum has produced a great online exhibit of Julia Child’s Kitchen.
Look at individual artifacts from Julia Child’s (Smith College, 1934) kitchen and home that range from the utilitarian (butter dish) to the incredible (the signal mirror she was issued while serving in the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor to the CIA) in Asia during World War II). Take a 360 degree tour of her kitchen, and scroll over the links to learn what she stored in her cupboards and how many turkeys could fit in her over. The exhibit also offers an interactive storyline to learn more about Child’s kitchen, work, and life, and learn about how the Smithsonian acquired her kitchen, describing that space as “a real family room…to be kept part of your life.”
Interested in Civil Rights History? Check out the 1963 March on Washington program online!
Oral Histories
You might want to check out The Virtual Oral/Aural History Archive for social history primary source material. Directed by Kaye Breifel, Sherna Berger Gluck, and Ali Igmen, this collection is broken down into 8 main categories: American Indian Studies, Asian American History, Labor History, Long Beach Area History, Mexican American/Chicano/a History, Musical Developments in Southern California, Southeast Asian Communities, and Women’s History.
According to the directors, this archive holds over 1100 hours of original oral history recordings!
“With its focus on orality, VOAHA brings to life the timbre and tone of voice, the nuances of spoken language, and the richness of oral narratives of some 343 African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, Latinos/as and Southern and Eastern European immigrants. They range from farm laborers to professionals, from social reformers/community activists to anarchists and communists, from ventriloquists to jazz arrangers. In a variety of dialects, in this oral literary genre, they recount their joys and sorrows and their triumphs and defeats as they lived out their daily lives in the period from the 1890s to the 1990s.”
Stay tuned for frequent updates to this page!
No Responses to “ Digital ”