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History

General - American History - Illinois History - Local History - World History

Lewis and Clark Expedition

General

  • On this Day
    On this Web site from the New York Times, you will find a listing of events that happened on a particular day in years past, and a list of famous people born on that day.  If you click on "go to a previous date" on the upper right of the page, you can find out what happened on any given day of the year.
  • Best of History Web Sites
    On this Web site you'll find links to history Web sites "rated for usefulness and accuracy, that will help you study or teach a wide variety of topics and periods in History."
  • Historic Cities
    "This site contains maps, literature, documents, books and other relevant material concerning the past, present and future of historic cities and facilitates the location of similar content on the web."
  • Library of Congress: Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
    Here you will find links to records for about one million images. You can use key words to search this Website.
  • Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web
    This Website from the Smithsonian Institution Libraries "features links to online exhibitions that have been created by libraries, archives, and historical societies, as well as to museum online exhibitions with a significant focus on library and archival materials."
  • MemoryWiki
    This Website is a place where you can post stories about the people, places, and events that you remember.  If your story is related to Joliet, please consider submitting it to the Joliet Public Library for inclusion in the Joliet Remembers project.
  • Online Speech Bank
    On this Website you will find links to the text and/or audio of speeches by famous Americans and some World Leaders. Note that the links are arranged alphabetically by first name.
  • Time Covers
    This Website has images of every cover of Time magazine since its founding in 1923. There are also summaries of the articles found in each issue. If you wish to view complete articles, the Joliet Public Library has most of the issues of Time, either printed copies, or on microfiche.

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American History

General

  • Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
    This library and museum in Springfield Illinois "brings together the world's largest collection of documentary material related to the life of the 16th President."
  • Abraham Lincoln: The Lincoln Log
    "The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln incorporates Lincoln Day-by-Day: A Chronology . . . published by the Government Printing Office in 1960. The text presented here includes all entries from that publication, with corrections and additions by the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, a project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.
  • Alexander Hamilton: The Man Who Made Modern America
    This Website from the New York Historical Society will acquaint you "with a statesman and visionary whose life inspired discussion and controversy and shaped the America we live in two hundred years after his death."
  • American Cultural History: The 19th Century
    This Website from the Kingwood College Library in Texas Gives an overview of the history of each decade in the 19th century, You may click on one of the many links to view more information about particular topics.
  • Alcohol, Temperance, & Prohibition
    On this Website from Brown University you will find materials "published by various groups leading up to prohibition, during the prohibition era, and ending with the 21st amendment in 1933, which repealed the 18th amendment from 1919 prohibiting the manufacturing, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors."
  • Anti-Saloon League 1893 - 1933
    "The Anti-Saloon League from 1893 to 1933 was a major force in American politics. Influencing the United States through the printed word and lobbying, they turned a moral crusade into a Constitutional amendment. The League left a legacy of printed material at a site bequeathed to the Westerville Public Library which houses the Anti-Saloon League Museum. The Westerville Public Library in an effort to preserve and share the League's story has established this Web site with financial help from a grant provided by the State Library of Ohio."
  • Encyclopedia of North American Indians
    This Website contains 447 articles. Nearly half the articles on individual tribes were written by members of those tribes.
  • The Erie Canal: A Brief History
    Before the I & M Canal was built, the Erie Canal opened, in 1825.  The Erie Canal spurred the movement of people and goods to the Great Lakes region, and the development of New York City.
  • Evolution of the Shopping Center
    This Website shows how shopping centers in the U.S. grew and changed during the 20th century.
  • Famous Cases
    This Website has brief overviews of some of the more newsorthy cases handled by the FBI.
  • First Ladies Gallery
    This Website has brief biographies of the wives of the Presidents.
  • Gold Rush
    This Website from the Sacramento Bee has a series of articles that describe what happened to the people who participated in the gold rush, and the environmental damage caused by the gold rush.
  • Gold Rush Chronicles
    This Website has a timeline of events surrounding the gold rush, a list places where godl was mined, and short biographies of famous people who participated in the gold rush.
  • Historic American Sheet Music
    On this Website from Duke University you will find images of 3042 pieces of sheet music published in the U.S. between 1850 and 1920
  • Historic Maps of the U.S.
    This Website from the University of Texas at Austin has links to historical maps of U.S. territorial expansion, military battles, U.S. cities & more.
  • History of the American West 1860 - 1920
    This Website has links to "over 30,000 photographs, drawn from the holdings of the Western History and Genealogy Department at Denver Public Library."
  • History Wired: A Few of Our Favorite Things
    This experimental site introduces visitors to some of the three million objects held by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
  • Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2004
    "This report [from the Congressional Research Service] lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes."
  • Key Ingredients: America By Food
    This Website from the Smithsonian Institution describes the history of foods eaten United States.
  • LIFE Photo Gallery
    Here you will find a small sample of the thousands of photos that have appeared lin Life Magazine.
  • The Living Room Candidate
    On this Website from the American Museum of the Moving Image, you can view television commercials run on behalf of candidates for President of the U.S. The Website currently has commercials from the 1952 - 2000 campaigns.
  • Medical History of the American Presidents
    "This website tabulates the illnesses of American Presidents and other notable people. Both laypersons and physicians will find it interesting."
  • Motor City
    For much of the 20th century, Detroit was the automobile capital of the world. On this Website from the Detroit Historical Museum you will find a history of the automobile industry in Detroit.
  • Peopling North America: Population Movements and Migration
    This Website has an overview of migratory movements to and within Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean from Europe, Asia, and Africa>
  • Postcard and Greeting Card Museum
    On this Website you will find images of over 900 postcards and greeting cards from the Victorian era to the 20th century.
  • The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
    "Americans have gone to war to win their independence, expand their national boundaries, define their freedoms, and defend their interests around the globe. This exhibition examines how wars have shaped the nation's history and transformed American Society."
  • Religion and the Founding of the American Republic
    This Website from the Library of Congress "demonstrates that many of the colonies that in 1776 became the United States of America were settled by men and women of deep religious convictions who in the seventeenth century crossed the Atlantic Ocean to practice their faith freely."
  • Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs 1851 - 1991
    This Web site from the Library of Congress covers a wide variety of subject areas. It appears that most of the photographs on this Web site were taken in the early part of the twentieth century.
  • Tick Tock Toys
    This Website has images of food packages, food ads, and photos of grocery stores from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
  • Women Working 1870 - 1930
    This Website provides "access to digitized books (over 2000), manuscripts (10,000 pages) and images (1,000) from the collections of Harvard University Libraries and Museums on the topic of women in the U.S. economy from 1870-1930."
  • Wright Brothers Aeroplane Co.
    On this Website you will find a history of the development of the airplane, photos of aircraft produced by the Wright Company, and more.
  • The Wright Brothers Photographs
    This website has over 250 photographs taken by the Wright Brothers.
  • Zoom into Maps
    This Web site has images of historical maps from the collection of the Library of Congress.

African Americans

  • African American History Timeline Home Page
    This Website from the University of Washington notes that "absorbing and referring to a time line (or better, yet, making your own) is an effective way of learning the sequential course of events and often the timeline can reveal the possibility of the relationship between causes, people and events that occurred in the same time period, while not in the same geographical area."
  • African American Photos for Paris Exposition 1900
    On this Website from the Library of Congress you will find photos "included a display devoted to the history and "present conditions" of African Americans. W.E.B. Du Bois and special agent Thomas J. Calloway spearheaded the planning, collection and installation of the exhibit materials."
  • The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record
    "The hundreds of images in this collection have been selected from a wide range of sources, most of them dating from the period of slavery."  This Web site is a project of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and The Digital Media Lab at the University of Virginia Library.
  • I will be heard: Abolitionism in America
    This Website from Cornell University "documents our country’s intellectual, moral, and political struggle to achieve freedom for all Americans."
  • Black Studies
    This Website from the City College of New York has links to over 200 African American-related Websites.
  • Brown@50
    Here you will find "the homepage of the celebration and commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954)."
  • Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas
    This Website from the Mariners' Museum "examines the transatlantic slave trade and seeks to increase understanding of this maritime epic and its legacies in the modern world."
  • Chicago Renaissance
    This Website from the Chicago Public Library notes that "In the early 1930's, as the famed Harlem Renaissance of black cultural achievement was winding down, a new surge of African American creativity, activism and scholarship began to flower in the South Side Chicago district then becoming known as 'Bronzeville'."
  • Civil Rights Movement Veterans
    On this Website, Ordinary people who participated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s tell their stories.
  • DuSable Museum of African-American History
    This Museum "is the oldest museum of its type in the country and is the only major independent institution in Chicago established to preserve and interpret the historical experiences and achievements of African-Americans."
  • The History of CORE: The Congress of Racial Equality
    Here you will find a short history of this Civil Rights organization. You will also find links to information about major events in the struggle for civil rights, and "short biographies of some of the key individuals who had significant influence on the focus and direction of CORE as the organization evolved over the years."
  • The History of Jim Crow
    This Web site invites you to "explore the complex African-American experience of segregation from the 1870s through the 1950s."
  • Images of African Americans from the 19th Century
    On this Website from the New York Public Library,you can search for images by choosing a category, or by typing in a keyword.
  • In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience
    This Website examines African and African-American Migration to North American, and within it.
  • Lest We Forget: The Triumph Over Slavery
    This Website from the New York Public Library and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization explores the history of the transatlantic slave trade.
  • Look Back, Ponder, and Move On: Glimpses of the African-American Experience in Savannah 1750-1900
    This Website "is the beginning of an exploration of the African American journey in Savannah. Part I traces the journey essentially from 1750 to 1900. During those 150 fateful years African Americans had gone from being bondspeople to citizens of the American Republic working and building their destiny along with other citizens."
  • Malcolm X: A Search for Truth
    This Website from the New York Public Library is the online version of an exhibition in commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Malcom X. "The subtitle A Search for Truth focuses the interpretive dimensions of the exhibition on the process and products of his driving intellectual quest for truth about himself, his family, his people, his country, and his world."
  • The Murder of Emmett Till
    This Website from PBS has a timeline of events surrounding this brutal murder.
  • Negro League Baseball
    This Web site has profiles of teams and players that played in the Negro baseball leagues in the early part of the twentieth century.
  • negrospirituals.com
    On this Website you will find information about the history of African American spirituals and full text lyrics for many of the songs.
  • Our Shared History: African American Heritage
    This Web site from the U.S. National Park Service has information about African-American History, primarily as it relates to sites owned by the Park Service.
  • Partners of the Heart
    This Web site tells the story of Vivien Thomas who with Alfred Blalock pioneered an operation that saved the lives of thousands of children.
  • Powerful Days
    This Website has 20 photos of moments in the 1960s struggle for civil rights.
  • Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
    This Website "offers insights into topics in American history including the Civil War, slavery, abolition, race relations, definitions of freedom and citizenship, civil rights, black suffrage and election to political office, impeachment, regional political differences, nation building after war, the cotton economy, sharecropping, federal government intervention in the states, and more."
  • The Rosa Parks Bus at Henry Ford Museum
    This Website has a brief description of Ms. Parks' moment in history. There are also photos of the bus as it looked when the museum acquired it, and as viewers now see it in its restored condition.
  • Secret Routes to Freedom: The Underground Railroad Experience
    This Website explores the history of the Underground Railroad. You will read about the routes used by fleeing slaves, people who aided them, and laws that demanded the return of slaves caught while still in the U.S.
  • Slavery and the Making of America
    This Website from PBS is a companion to "a four-part series documenting the history of American slavery from its beginnings in the British colonies to its end in the Southern states and the years of post-Civil War Reconstruction."
  • Slaves and the Courts
    This Web site from the Library of Congress, "contains just over a hundred pamphlets and books (published between 1772 and 1889) concerning the difficult and troubling experiences of African and African-American slaves in the American colonies and the United States. The documents . . . comprise an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance."
  • Sonja Haynes Stone Center Library for Black Culture and History Guide to the Web
    This Website "is a valuable resource for scholars and other researchers interested in African, African American, and African Diaspora history and culture."
  • The Underground Railroad
    This Website from National Geographic describes what a slave might have experienced on a furtive journey from the southern U.S. to freedom in Canada.
  • Unseen. Unforgotten.
    "These Birmingham News photographs of the civil rights movement have not been seen by the public. Until now."

 

September 11, 2001

  • America's Day of Terror
    This site from the British Broadcasting Company describes what happened on September 11 using words, pictures, maps and diagrams.
  • ATTACKED
    This Web site from the Newseum in Arlington, VA has images of the front page of many newspapers published on September 12, 2001, including some from outside the U.S.
  • September 11 A Memorial
    This Web site from CNN gives biographical information about many of the victims of September 11, and posts tributes to them.
  • September 11: Bearing Witness to History
    On this Website from the Smithsonian Institution you will find images of objects related to the tragedies of September 11, 2001.
  • Oral Histories
    This Website from the New York Times has "more than 12,000 pages of oral histories rendered in the voices of 503 firefighters, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians." Please be aware that "the oral histories of dispatch transmissions are transcribed verbatim. They have have not been edited to omit coarse language."
  • Photoessays
    This Web site from Time.com has photos of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
  • The 9/11 Commission Report
    On this Website you will find the 585 page final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. This version of the report can be searched using keywords
  • Why the Towers Fell
    This Web site shows how the World Trade Center tower were constructed, and how one engineer believes they collapsed. The site also has a page showing the clothing worn by  firefighters, and gear carried by them.
  • New World Trade Center Designs
    This Web site has information on the design selected for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site.
  • World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition
    This Website has information about the memorial to be built in remembrance and honor of those who died on September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993.

American Revolution

Civil War

  • The American Civil War Homepage
    This Website from the University of Tennessee "gathers together in one place hypertext links to the most useful identified electronic files about the American Civil War (1861-1865)."
  • Civil War Maps
    This Website from the Library of Congress "contains approximately 2,240 Civil War maps and charts and 76 atlases and sketchbooks that are held within the Geography and Map Division, 200 maps from the Library of Virginia, and 400 maps from the Virginia Historical Society."
  • The Crisis of the Union: An Electronic Archive of Documents about the Causes, Conduct, and Consequences of the Civil War
    This Web site from the University of Pennsylvania "enables students and other researchers to use primary documents in their study of political, economic, social, religious, racial, and gender issues from the Jacksonian Era to the Gilded Age."
  • The Gettysburg National Military Park Virtual Tour.
    On this Website from the National Park Service you can view maps and photos, and read the story of the battle considered by many to be the turning point of the Civil War.
  • Intelligence in the Civil War
    This Website from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency looks "at some of the highlights of how the North and the South gathered and used their information, the important missions, and the personalities."
  • Selected Civil War Photographs
    This Website from the Library of Congress "contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men."

World War II

  • National WWII Memorial
    On this Website you will find information about the recently completed monument honoring "all military veterans of the war, the citizens on the home front, the nation at large, and the high moral purpose and idealism that motivated the nation's call to arms."
  • Normandy
    This Web site, from the U.S. Army, describes the Normandy campaign of World War II from it's earliest conception to the conclusion on 24 July 1944.
  • Suffering Under a Great Injustice:
    According to this Website, during World War II "more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry were removed from California, southern Arizona, and western Washington and Oregon and sent to ten relocation camps." This Website documents life at one of those camps.
  • Volunteering for Victory: The American Red Cross in World War II
    This Website notes that "at the close of the war in 1945, the Red Cross volunteer force numbered 7,500,700 individuals, and the American public had contributed $784 million. Nearly every family in America contained a member who had either served as a Red Cross volunteer, made a contribution of money or blood, or was a recipient of Red Cross services."

Korea

  • Korea +50: No Longer Forgotten
    "This page is a joint project between the Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Libraries developed to provide access to Korean War materials related to the two administrations occupying the White House during that period."

Vietnam

Illinois History

General

Chicago

  • Chicago: City of the Century
    This is the Web site prepared to complement the broadcast of a 3 part series of programs on PBS. "City of the Century chronicles Chicago's dramatic transformation from a swampy frontier town of fur traders and Native Americans to a massive metropolis that was the quintessential American city of the nineteenth century."
  • Encyclopedia of Chicago
    "The Encyclopedia of Chicago is a dynamic and unprecedented metropolitan history. Thousands of historical resources-including articles, photos, maps, broadsides and newspapers-related to Chicago's colorful and complex history are at your fingertips."
  • Jazz Age Chicago
    This Website explores "the everyday social and cultural experiences of Chicagoans during, for the most part, the 1920s and 1930s."
  • Just the Arti-Facts
    This Web site from the Chicago Historical Society has information on many aspects of Chicago's history.
  • Photographs from the Chicago Daily News 1902 - 1933
    "This collection comprises over 55,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, then one of Chicago's leading newspapers."
  • Revealing Chicago
    On this Website you will find aerial photos of Chicago.

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Local History

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World History

  • The Ancient Egypt Site
    This Website has a " a brief introduction into this history of Ancient Egypt", a dictionary of hieroglyphics, and brief descriptions of important monuments and archaeological sites.
  • Auschwitz
    "A chronological exploration of the largest mass murder site in history."
  • Battle of Britain
    "These pages catalogue the official reports of the most important event in Royal Air Force history, the Battle fought over Britain between the 10th July and 31st October 1940." You will find information on the aircraft involved in this battle, and a list of men who took part in this battle on behalf of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm.
  • The Berlin Wall
    This Web site from the Newseum tells the story of the Berlin Wall, a wall that separated the Eastern and Western sectors of Germany's capital from 1961-1989.
  • Canada in the Making
    "This site is about the history of Canada through the words of the men and women who shaped the nation."
  • Cleopatra: A Multimedia Guide to the Ancient World
    This Web site from the Art Institute of Chicago "takes you on an expedition to the ancient cultures of Egypt, Greece, and Italy using eighteen objects from the museum's distinguished collection." Note that the this Web site is available in both English and Spanish versions.
  • Guns Germs and Steel
    "Peeling back the layers of history, Guns, Germs and Steel exposes the great forces that have shaped human history over the last 10,000 years."
  • The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students
    "Organized by theme, this site uses text, historical photographs, maps, images of artifacts, and audio clips to provide an overview of the Holocaust."
  • Life in Elizabethan England: A Compendium of Common Knowledge
    This Website gives short descriptions of many aspects of life in England during the reign of Elizabeth I, 1558 - 1603.
  • Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
    The authors of this Website note that "the Medici nurtured the greatest artists and thinkers of their age for the greater glory of the family. This explosion of art and ideas known as the Renaissance shattered the medieval world."
  • Medieval Cookery
    If you have ever wondered What kinds of foods King Henry VIII is likely to have eaten, this Website is for you. You will find menus, and recipes adapted from medieval sources.
  • MuslimHeritage.com
    "Discover 1000 years of missing history and explore the fascinating Muslim contribution to present day Science, Technology, Arts, and Civilization."
  • The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials
    This Website from Yale University has transcriptions of the testimony given at the Nuremberg trials, and other documents related to the trials.
  • Petra: Lost City of Stone
    This Website from the American Museum of Natural History explores the history of this ancient city, located in present-day Jordan.
  • Poland at War
    On this Website you will find photos taken in Poland during the NAZI occupation, 1939 - 1945.
  • Remembering the Blitz
    "The Blitz [bombing of London by airplanes from Nazi Germany] took place between 7 September 1940 and 11 May 1941. This online exhibition looks at what it was like to live through the Blitz in London and at how we remember it now."
  • Rome: Republic to Empire
    This Website has brief essays on several topics concerning the history of the Roman Empire.
  • The Worst Jobs in History
    "In this website, we [Britain's Channel 4.com] take you on a journey through 2,000 years of British history and the worst jobs of each era.

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Links on this page are selected from lists provided by the Librarians' Index to the Internet, by Neat New Stuff I Found on the Net This Week, and from suggestions submitted by Joliet Public Library staff and patrons.

Updated 4/27/06
Links checked 3/29 and 3/30/06 JT
Websites examined 7/20/05 JT

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