See Also
U.S. History > American West > Local & State History
The American Folklife Center
"...full texts of selected publications; digital presentations of collections; a growing list of links to other resources in ethnographic studies; the Folkline information service, which provides timely information on national events, jobs, and training opportunities in folklife; and the Folklife Sourcebook: A Directory of Folklife Resources in the United States."
- The Library of Congress
Basque Museum & Cultural Center (Boise, Idaho)
- Basque Oral History Project
"Recently, a grant provided by the Basque Government is allowing these interviews to be transformed and published into a medium that makes them more accessible to the public. The Museum is actively posting the interviews already collected and is collecting more stories from those people yet to be chronicled."
Birds and Mammals Observed by Lewis & Clark in North Dakota - (dead link)
Online article by Reid, Russell and Clell G. Gannon. 1999. North Dakota History: 66(2):2-14.
The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 - (dead link)
A University of Arizona Library Web Exhibit
"The Bisbee Deportation of 1917 was an event specific to Arizona that influenced the labor movement throughout the United States. What started as a labor dispute between copper mining companies and their workers turned into vigilante action against the allegedly nefarious activities of the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). This site is a research-based collection of primary and secondary sources for the study of the deportation of over 1,000 striking miners from Bisbee on 12 July, 1917...Materials include I.W.W. publications, personal recollections, newspaper articles, court records, government reports, correspondence, and journal articles that are part of the collections of three libraries: The University of Arizona Library, the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson, Arizona, and the Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott, Arizona.
Buckaroos in Paradise - (dead link)
Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982
"...presents documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community created by the Paradise Valley Folklife Project, with a focus on the family-run Ninety-Six Ranch."
American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
"California as I Saw It:" First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900
"...consists of the full texts and illustrations of 190 works documenting the formative era of California's history through eyewitness accounts. The collection covers the dramatic decades between the Gold Rush and the turn of the twentieth century."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
California Gold: Northern California Folk Music From the Thirties
"...a multi-format ethnographic field collection that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians."
American Memory, Library of Congress
California History Online
Published by the California Historical Society
California Pioneer Project
"The California Pioneer List (CPL) is a list of settlers to California who migrated to or were born in California prior to 1880 (included in the 1880 California Census) and obtained from those sent (e-mailed) directly from individuals doing genealogical research."
By the California GenWeb Project
Camp Harmony Exhibit
"This exhibit tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as "Camp Harmony."
University of Washington Libraries
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
Includes a nice selection of online articles and historic reports.
[Curtis, Edward S.] Frontier Photographer: Edward S. Curtis
A Smithsonian Institution Libraries Exhibition
"Edward S. Curtis (1748-1952) left an indelible mark on the history of photography in his 20-volume life's work, The North American Indian."
Sections include: The Curtis Family ; Working on the Frontier ; Gaining Support ; A Life's Work ; Early Books ; Suggested Readings ; Timeline ; Family Sacrifices ; Curtis' Technique ; "The Man Who Never Took Time to Play" ; Alaska.
Dear Miss Breed: Letters from Camp
Online exhibit from the Japanese American National Museum
"This digital exhibit highlights the Museum's collection of letters written to San Diego librarian Clara Breed by Japanese Americans interned in World War II concentration camps."
Denver Public Library - The Photography Collection - (dead link)
"The Western History / Genealogy Department houses a major collection of photography documenting the development of the American West. The gallery exhibits will introduce you to topics chosen from the collection."
Early Motion Pictures, 1897-1916 - (dead link)
"Four groupings from the earliest period of the medium: McKinley and the Pan-American Exposition, New York City, San Francisco Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire, and The Westinghouse Works."
American Memory, Library of Congress
The Elkus Indian Papers
"The California Academy of Sciences houses a collection of over 2,000 documents related to Indian affairs over the period 1922-1963."
Includes an online database of the papers, maps of the Southwest and more
The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920
"...documents the historical formation and cultural foundations of the movement to conserve and protect America's natural heritage. The collection consists of 60 books and pamphlets, 140 Federal statutes and Congressional resolutions, 34 additional legislative documents, excerpts from the Congressional Globe and the Congressional Record, 360 Presidential proclamations, 170 prints and photographs, 2 historic manuscripts, and a two-part motion picture."
American Memory, Library of Congress
Finding Family Stories Gallery
Online exhibit from the Japanese American National Museum
"This electronic gallery features artists previously involved in Finding Family Stories. Working with the Korean American Museum, The Watts Towers Arts Center and Plaza de la Raza has enabled the Japanese American National Museum to initiate an ongoing dialogue about the "purity" of ethnic communities by examining the historic and contemporary crossovers and exchanges between the Japanese American, African American and Latino communities in Los Angeles."
The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
"...consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Among the sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, ledgers and other financial records, maps, physical artifacts, and pictorial images."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Golden Dreams: The Quest for the Klondike
"...retraces the path to the Klondike Gold Fields from Washington State in 1897 and 1898 through the eyes and lens of photographer Asahel Curtis. Using images, period objects and artifacts, multimedia exhibits and interactive storytelling techniques..."
- Washington State Historical Society
Hispano Music and Culture of the Northern Rio Grande:
The Juan B. Rael Collection, 1940.
"...is an online presentation of a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting religious and secular music of Spanish-speaking residents of rural Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado...to document alabados (hymns), folk drama, wedding songs, and dance tunes...In addition to these recordings, the collection includes manuscript materials and publications authored by Rael which provide insight into the rich musical heritage and cultural traditions of this region
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Japanese-Americans Internment Camps During World War II
An online exhibit from the Special Collections Department, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, and Private Collections
Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
"The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online makes available the text of the celebrated Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton. Moulton's editionóthe most accurate and inclusive edition ever publishedóis one of the major scholarly achievements of the late twentieth century."
A Literary History of the American West
Online version of the 1974 text published by Texas Christian University Press
Meeting of Frontiers (English or Russian)
"...is a bilingual, multimedia English-Russian digital library that tells the story of the American exploration and settlement of the West, the parallel exploration and settlement of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the meeting of the Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest...It is intended for use in U.S. and Russian schools and libraries and by the general public in both countries. Scholars, particularly those who do not have ready access to major research libraries, also will benefit from the mass of primary material included in Meeting of Frontiers, much of which has never been published or is extremely rare.
U.S. Library of Congress
Mountain Men and the Fur Trade
Sources of the History of the Fur Trade in the Rocky Mountain West
"The ultimate goal for this web site is to provide a virtual research center for Western Fur Trade History. The main focus is the Mountain Men in the United States Rocky Mountain region in the period from 1800-50. The first priority is to provide an e-text collection of the most important historical source materials."
Native American Documents Project
"...is working to make documents about the history of federal policy concerning native peoples more readily available. [includes] Indexed Published Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Board of Indian Commissioners for 1871, and two appendices to the board's report...ten tables of quantitative data, with explanatory material, about the results of allotment...111 indexed documents in the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation collection, most from the 19th century, with explanatory material and a map."
California State University, San Marcos
Native American Electronic Text Resources on the Internet
An extensive collection of contemporary historic texts, documents, articles and more
Maintained by Karen M. Strom
New York Public Library West Website
- Heading West: Mapping the Territory
"According to an old adage, a place is not discovered until it is mapped. Through impressions of the West in maps from 1540 to 1900, this online exhibition presents an overview of the process, which continues today...reveals the evolution on paper from an imagined West to a mapped West, seemingly defined yet still a fiction of sorts."
- Touring West
19th-century Performing Artists on the Overland Trails
"This online exhibition celebrates the creators, promoters, and performers of professional theater, music, and dance who toured the American continent...Performances are documented here through promotional ephemera such as broadsides, programs, flyers, handbills, souvenirs, postcards, and, after 1848, photographs. Through scores and prompt scripts, annotated by musicians and stage managers, we can learn what the audience experienced at the events. Business records, ship or train schedules and shipping manifestos speak to the realities of the tour."
- Surveyors of the American West
William Henry Jackson: Diary, Collection Guide, Galleries of Stereoscopic Views and Mammoth Prints.
Official photographer of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories in 1870.
Robert Brewster Stanton: Field Notes, Collection Guide, Gallery.
Led a survey party through the Grand Canyon in 1889-1890.
Northwest Imagery: The Photography of Edward & Asahel Curtis
Washington State Historical Society
Northwest Resistance Digitization Project
University of Saskatchewan Libraries
The Online Archive of California (OAC)
- Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (JARDA)
"Curators from the eight participating OAC members selected a broad range of primary sources to be digitized, including: photographs, documents, manuscripts, paintings, drawings, letters, and oral histories. Over 10,000 digital images have been created complimented by 20,000 pages of electronic transcriptions of document and oral histories."
The Promise of Gold Mountain: Tucson's Chinese Heritage
"Using text and photographs, this exhibit traces the history of Chinese-Americans in Tucson, including short biographies of some prominent members of Tucson's Chinese-American community."
- University of Arizona
The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures
"The complete collection will include 68 motion pictures and a selection of sound recordings related to the war; 53 motion pictures are included in this first release. The Spanish-American War was the first U.S. war in which the motion picture camera played a role."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
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The Texas Constitutions Digitization Project - (dead link)
"The goal of the Texas Constitutions Project is to digitize the various versions of the Texas Constitution and to make digital versions of the documents available online together with explanatory text and images
Presented by the Tralton Law Library at the University of Texas School of Law.
Texas Tides
Tides in Early Texas History
"We created two web portals through Texas Tides.
Half of our project is a web site geared for fourth and seventh grade Texas history students and teachers and the other half of the project is a database of over 5,000 digitized primary resources."
- Collaborative project between the East Texas Research Center, The Stone Fort Museum, the Sam Houston Memorial Museum, the Newton Gresham Library and the Huntsville Public Library.
Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1749
"...incorporates 49 diaries, in 59 volumes, of pioneers trekking westward across America to Utah, Montana, and the Pacific between 1847 and the meeting of the rails in 1749. In addition to the diaries, the collection includes 43 maps, 82 photographs and illustrations, and 7 published guides for immigrants...The collection tells the stories of Mormon pioneer families and others who were part of the national westering movement, sharing trail experiences common to hundreds of thousands of westward migrants
- American Memory, Library of Congress
U.S. Census Bureau
The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848)
Two Nations, One Border - The War that Transformed Them Forever.
"Welcome to the online companion resource for the documentary, 'The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848).' ... 'The U.S.-Mexican War' Web Site is a thoughtful study in the way humans access, process, agree and disagree in the search for truth as it chronicles the war through multiple perspectives from both sides of the conflict ... Within this site, you will find a series of conversations with and essays by historians and other experts. We also offer a timeline that illustrates war-related events and a discussion arena where we invite you to share your own viewpoints on the U.S.-Mexican War."
- PBS Online
University of Washington Digital Collections
"...a growing number of collections from the University of Washington Libraries and faculty in such diverse areas as the humanities, the natural sciences, and the regional cultures of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The site includes the award-winning project American Indians of the Pacific Northwest. These collections are especially strong in Seattle history, architecture, labor and industry, the Klondike Gold Rush, and our natural environment."
University of Wyoming - American Heritage Center
Utah State University Special Collections & Archives - Digital Exhibits
Voices from the Dust Bowl
"...documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection consists of audio recordings, photographs, manuscript materials, publications, and ephemera generated during two separate documentation trips."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
War Relocation Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946
"This Exhibit features images from approximately forty photographs taken for the War Relocation Authority and vividly depicts life in Arizona's two camps."
University of Arizona Library's Special Collection
Washington State University - Digital Collections
- Frank S. Matsura Image Collection [1907-1013]
"He photographed both the profound and minor changes taking place in and around Okanogan [Washington]; from the construction of the Conconully Dam that provided for the irrigation of thousands of acres of farmland, to the installation of a city street sprinkler in Okanogan to keep the dust settled on downtown dirt streets."
Westward by Sea: A Maritime Perspective on American Expansion, 1820-1890
"This selection of items from Mystic Seaport's archival collections includes logbooks, diaries, letters, business papers, and published narratives of voyages and travels. The unique maritime perspective of these materials offers a rich look at the events, culture, beliefs, and personal experiences associated with the settlement of California, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. A number of photographs, paintings, maps, and nautical charts are also included to illustrate the story of Americansí western seaborne travel. Various themes are touched upon, including whaling, life at sea, shipping, women at sea, and native populations."
American Memory, Library of Congress
Women Artists of the American West: Past & Present
"An Internet Course and Interdisciplinary Resource featuring the vital contributions that women have made to the art and history of the American west."
"...features the vital contributions that women have made to the art and history of the American west. The site is designed as an interdisciplinary resource and a distance learning course ... The WAAW Internet archive currently contains 17 collections, arranged according to four themes: community, identity, spirituality and locality. Each collection is comprised of illustrated essays, most of which have been written specifically for WAAW by recognized art historians, curators and artists."
Photo & Map Archives
Asahel Curtis Photo Company Collection
"...contains 1,704 photographs depicting activities in Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska and the Klondike, from the 1850s until 1940."
Some areas are restricted to University of Washington students and faculty.
University of Washington Digital Libraries Initiatives
Early Washington Maps: A Digital Collection
"Spanning three hundred years, Early Washington Maps: A Digital Collection includes maps of both sea and land faring explorersófrom David Thompson, the successful navigator of the Columbia River, to the exploits of William Clark and Merriwether Lewis. It documents the struggle between Britain and America for the ownership of the region, and the further development of one of the last frontiers on the continent. Some of the digital collection's maps delineate the boundaries under dispute within the years 1818 and 1846, culminating in a peaceful compromise and the decision of the 49th parallel as the northern border of the United States. The digital collection also shows the efforts of the U.S. government to survey the land, for both federal and private use, under the watchful, trained eye of the General Land Office and the Corps of Topographical Engineers."
- University of Washington Libraries
History of the American West, 1740-1920
Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library
"Over 30,000 photographs, drawn from the holdings of the Western History and Genealogy Department at Denver Public Library, illuminate many aspects of the history of the American West. Most of the photographs were taken between 1740 and 1920. They illustrate Colorado towns and landscape, document the place of mining in the history of Colorado and the West, and show the lives of Native Americans from more than forty tribes living west of the Mississippi River. Also included are World War II photographs of the 10th Mountain Division, ski troops based in Colorado who saw action in Italy."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784-1894
U.S. Congressional Documents - United States Serial Set, Number 4015
"...contains the second part of the two-part Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1896-1897. (Part one is printed in United States Serial Set Number 4014.) Part two, which was also printed as House Document No. 736 of the U.S. Serial Set, 56th Congress, 1st Session, features sixty-seven maps and two tables compiled by Charles C. Royce, with an introductory essay by Cyrus Thomas."
From A Century of Lawmaking For a New Nation, Library of Congress
Lewis & Clark - Mapping the West
"This site sets the historical stage, features online access to Lewis and Clark maps and other primary resources, and provides related activities and lesson plans."
National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian
Mission Churches of the Sonoran Desert - (dead link)
Included are 9 mission churches: Caborca, CocÛspera, Magdalena, Oquitoa, Pitiquito, San Ignacio, San Xavier, Tubutama and Tumacacori.
"These slides, taken over a period of twenty years by James S. Griffith, a folklorist living in southern Arizona, show the major mission sites in the old PimerÌa Alta that can be visited today."
New York Public Library West Website
- Heading West: Mapping the Territory
"According to an old adage, a place is not discovered until it is mapped. Through impressions of the West in maps from 1540 to 1900, this online exhibition presents an overview of the process, which continues today...reveals the evolution on paper from an imagined West to a mapped West, seemingly defined yet still a fiction of sorts."
The Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920 - (dead link)
Photographs from the Fred Hultstrand and F.A. Pazandak Photograph Collections.
These two collections from the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota State University contain 900 photographs of rural and small town life at the turn of the century. Highlights include images of sod homes and the people who built them; images of farms and the machinery that made them prosper; and images of one-room schools and the children that were educated in them."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
PBS - American Experience - Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film (March 2003)
Companion web site to the TV broadcast.
"...offers insights into American history topics including the closing of the wilderness, the American West, California history, Japanese American internment, the natural environment, conflicts between economic growth and conservation of the American landscape, photographs as documentary historical sources, media literacy, and the role of art."
Sections include: Transcript ; Primary Sources ; Further Reading ; Inside a View Camera ; Adams' Photo Gear ; Art or Document ; Early Hiking Footage ; Timeline ; Gallery ; People & Events ; Teacher's Guide.
Prairie Settlement
Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters, 1742-1912
"This digital collection integrates two collections from the holdings of the Nebraska State Historical Society, the Solomon D. Butcher photographs and the letters of the Uriah W. Oblinger family. Together they illustrate the story of settlement on the Great Plains. Approximately 3,000 glass plate negatives crafted by Butcher record the process of settlement in Nebraska between 1874 and 1912. Butcher photographed actively in central Nebraska including Custer, Buffalo, Dawson and Cherry counties. The approximately 3,000 pages of Oblinger family letters discuss land, work, neighbors, crops, religious meetings, problems with grasshoppers, financial problems, and the Easter Blizzard of 1873."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Railroad Maps, 1828-1900
"Included in the collection are progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land grants and rights-of-way, and route guides published by commercial firms."
- American Memory, Library of Congress
Rare Map Collection - Union and Expansion
University of Georgia
Tacoma Public Library - Northwest Room
Sections include: Washington Place Names ; The Genealogy Collection ; The Photography Collection ; Tacoma Building Index ; The Murray Morgan Prize ; Murray's People ; Ships & Shipping Database ; Unsettling Events ; Tacoma Obituary Index.
- Photography Collection & Archive
"The Tacoma Public Library's extensive photograph collection conveys a rich sense of Northwest history by documenting the social, industrial, commercial, and agricultural growth and development of Washington and the Pacific Northwest...More than 40,000 images are currently available online in a searchable database."
Tribal Maps
EPA Region 9 [Southwest]
Western History Collections Photo Archives
"...emphasis on the American Southwest and West for the period 1870-1940, the Photographic Archives is a major source for research and graphic illustration for many disciplines. Topically, the collection is strong on American Indians, Oklahoma's land runs and lotteries, the settlement and development of Oklahoma towns, western outlaws and lawmen, the cattle trade, agriculture, the petroleum industry, and related socioeconomic themes of the western United States."
Exploring the West from Monticello
"An Exhibition of Maps and Navigational Instruments, on View in the Tracy W. McGregor Room, Alderman Library, University of Virginia."
Map Collections: 1597-1988
"The focus of Map Collections is Americana and Cartographic Treasures of the Library of Congress. These images were created from maps and atlases and, in general, are restricted to items that are not covered by copyright protection."
American Memory, Library of Congress
The Oregon Trail - Trail Archives
"The Trail archive is our growing collection of full-text period documents." Includes Diaries, Memoirs, and Period Books.
By Prof. Mike Trinklein and Steve Boettcher, creators of The Oregon Trail, the award-winning documentary film which aired nationally on PBS Stations.
University of Texas at Austin - Perry-CastaÒeda Library Map Collection
Rare Map Collection - Union and Expansion
University of Georgia
Maps of the PimerÏa - (dead link)
Early Cartography of the Southwest
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