SocialSocial Studies Programs
American Memory Collections and Special Features from the Library of Congress (R-W)
FROM Ranching Culture, Nevada ~ Multiformat ~ 1945-1982
TO Wright Brothers ~ Multiformat ~ 1881-1952
| Library of Congress Subject | Collection Title & Description | Special Feature |
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Railroads Railroad maps illustrate the growth of travel and settlement as well as the development of industry and agriculture in the United States. This collection includes progress report surveys for individual lines, official government surveys, promotional maps, maps showing land |
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Ranching Culture, Nevada ~ Multiformat ~ 1945-1982 Buckaroos in Paradise: Ranching Culture in Northern Nevada, 1945-1982 Collection presents documentation of a Nevada cattle-ranching community, with a focus on the family run Ninety-Six Ranch. This collection presents 41 motion pictures and 28 sound recordings that tell the story of life and work on the Ninety-Six Ranch and of its cowboys, known in the region as buckaroos. Also included is an archive of still photographs that portray the people, sites, and traditions on other ranches and in the larger community of Paradise Valley |
Buckaroo: Views of a Western Way of Life Description of life as a cowboy, or buckaroo, in Nevada; Essays; Photographs; |
Revolutionary Era The American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North America and Collection includes maps and charts documenting North American and the West Indies between 1750-1789. |
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Roosevelt, Theodore ~ Films ~ 1898-1919 Theodore Roosevelt: His Life and Times on Film
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Sound Recordings of T. R.'s Voice Speeches and recordings of Theodore Roosevelt; Audio Essay on Roosevelt's film appearances; Video Timeline of Theodore Roosevelt's life Explanation and timeline of Roosevelt's presidency on film; Video |
San Francisco and 1906 Earthquake Before and After the Great Earthquake and Fire: Early Films of San Francisco, 1897-1916 Collection consists of twenty-six films of San Francisco from before and after the Great Earthquake and Fire, 1897-1916. |
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September 11, 2001, and Public Reactions ~ Multiformat ~ 2001-2002 September 11, 2001: Documentary Project
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Featured Drawings
Drawings by third grade students |
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| Sheet Music ~ 1820-1860 & 1870-1885 Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music 1820-1860 & 1870-1885 Collection contains more than 62,500 pieces of historical sheet music. Included are popular songs, operatic arias, piano music, sacred and secular choral music, solo instrumental music, method books and instructional materials, and music for band and orchestra. |
Greatest Hits, 1820-60 (Variety Music Cavalcade) Timeline of greatest hits; Sheet music Greatest Hits, 1870-85 (Variety Music Cavalcade) Timeline of greatest hits; Sheet music In Performance - Choral Works from the Collection Selected musical compositions; Audio Music Copyrighted in Federal District Courts, ca. 1820-1860 Discussion of music copyrighted between 1820 - 1860; Sheet music; Illustrations Music Published in America, 1870-1885 Description of popular music and themes in America; Sheet music |
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Sheet Music ~ 1850-1920 Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920 (Duke University) Collection presents over 3,000 pieces of sheet music in various music types including bel canto, minstrel songs, protest songs, sentimental songs, patriotic and political songs, plantation songs, spirituals, dance music, songs from vaudeville and musicals, "Tin pan alley" songs, and songs from World War I. |
Historic American Sheet Music Timeline: 1850-1920
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Slave Narratives ~ Audio Interviews ~ 1932-1975 Voices from the Days of Slavery:
Former Slaves Tell Their Stories |
Biographies of the Interviewers Biographical information of interviewers; Photographs Faces and Voices from the Presentation Slave narratives; Photographs; Audio |
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Slave Narratives, Federal Writers' Project ~ Multiformat ~ 1936-1938 Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 Collection contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. The narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writer's Project. |
An Introduction to the WPA Slave Narratives by Norman R. Yetman Explanation of the WPA Slave narratives; Photographs; Voices and Faces from the Collection First-person accounts of slavery; Photographs |
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Slavery and Law ~ Documents ~ 1740-1860 Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 Collection contains 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 collection contains an assortment of trials and cases, reports, arguments, accounts, examinations of cases and decisions, proceedings, journals, a letter, and other works of historical importance. |
Slave Code for the District of Columbia Slave code for District of Columbia; Documents |
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Small Town Life, Mid-Atlantic ~ Stereoscopic Photographs ~ 1850-1920 Small-Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Robert Dennis Collection, 1850-1920 Collection of stereoscopic views of the Mid-Atlantic states New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut from the 1850s to the 1910s. |
Description of Stereoscopic views; Photographs |
Song Sheets America Singing: Nineteenth-Century Song Sheets Song sheets, different from sheet music, were used to teach Americans the latest songs. This collection of song sheets spans from the turn of the nineteenth century to the 1880s. |
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Southern Black Churches ~ Texts ~ 1780-1925 The Church in the Southern Black Community, 1780-1925 Collection of printed texts tracing how Southern African Americans experienced and transformed Protestant Christianity into the central institution of community life. It focuses, through slave narratives and observations by other African American authors, on how the black community adapted evangelical Christianity, making it a metaphor for freedom, community, and personal survival. |
An Introduction to the Church in the Southern Black Community Essay on Southern Black Community; Photographs; Sheet Music |
Southern U.S. ~ Personal Narratives First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920 Collection of printed texts documents the culture of the nineteenth-century American South from the viewpoint of Southerners. It includes the diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts, and ex-slave narratives of not only prominent individuals, but also of relatively inaccessible populations: women, African Americans, enlisted men, laborers, and Native Americans. |
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Spanish-American War ~ Films ~ 1898-1901 The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures Collection features 68 motion pictures produced between 1898 and 1901 of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Philippine Revolution. The pictures are presented in chronological order together with brief essays that provide a historical context for their filming.
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The Motion Picture Camera Goes to War: The Spanish-American War and the Philippine Revolution Motion pictures from Spanish-American War; Video |
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Sunday Schools ~ Books ~ 1815-1865 Sunday School Books: Shaping the Values of Youth in Nineteenth-Century America Collection presents 163 Sunday school books published in America between 1815 and 1865. They document the culture of religious instruction of youth in America during the Antebellum era. They also illustrate a number of thematic divisions that preoccupied nineteenth-century America, including sacred and secular, natural and divine, civilized and savage, rural and industrial, adult and child. |
Biographical information on authors of Sunday school books |
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Texas Border ~ Photographs ~ 1900-1920 The South Texas Border: The Robert Runyon Photograph Collection Collection of over 8,000 items, is a unique visual resource documenting the Lower Rio Grande Valley during the early 1900s. Donated by the Runyon family to the Center for American History in 1986, it includes glass negatives, lantern slides, nitrate negatives, prints, and postcards, representing the life's work of commercial photographer Robert Runyon |
The Mexican Revolution: Conflict in Matamoros Photographic timeline with captions of conflict in Matamoros; Photographs; |
Transportation, Global Around the World in the 1890s: Photographs from the World's Transportation Commission, 1894 - 1896 Collection contains nearly nine hundred images by American photographer William Henry Jackson. In addition to railroads, elephants, camels, horses, sleds and sleighs, sedan chairs, rickshaws, and other types of transportation, Jackson photographed city views, street and harbor scenes, landscapes, local inhabitants, and Commission members as they traveled through North Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. |
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Traveling in America American Notes: Travel in America, 1750-1920 Contains 253 published narratives by Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, and society from about 1750 to 1920. Although many of the authors represented are not widely known, the collection includes works by figures such as James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, and Robert Louis Stevenson. |
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Turn-of-the-Century America Collection of photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection includes over 25,000 glass negatives and transparencies as well as about 300 color photolithograph prints, mostly of the eastern United States. The collection includes the work of a number of photographers, one of whom was the well known photographer William Henry Jackson. |
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U.S. Congress ~ Documents ~ 1774-1875 A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875 Collection brings together online the records and acts of Congress from the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention through the 43rd Congress, including the first three volumes of the Congressional Record, 1873-75.
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Impeachment Trial of President Andrew Johnson, 1868 Record of impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson; Image; Additional resources Indian Land Cessions in the United States, 1784 to 1894 Eighteenth annual report on land cessions; Maps; Tables; Essays Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865 Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America; Images The Louisiana Purchase: Legislative Timeline - 1802 to 1807 Timeline of Louisiana Purchase; Images; Maps Making of the U.S. Constitution Introduction to volume 1 of the Annals of Congress Presidential Elections and the Electoral College, 1877 Highlights of volume 5, part 4 of the Congressional Record; Additional resources Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States Correspondence involved in Revolutionary War Timeline: American History as Seen in Congressional Documents, 1774-1873 Timeline of Congressional Documents; Engravings |
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Upper Midwest ~ Books ~ ca. 1820-1910 Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910 Collection portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century through first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, colonial archival documents, and other works. |
The History of the Upper Midwest: An Overview Description of life in Upper Midwest; Drawings; Photograph; Maps; Cartoons |
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Utah and Western Migration ~ Multiformat ~ 1846-1869 Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869 Collection 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 1869. In addition to the diaries, the collection includes 43 maps, 82 photographs and illustrations, and 7 published guides for immigrants. |
Stories of Mormon Pioneer families traveling West; Maps; Essays; Images Interactive map of journey West; Photographs; Explanations |
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Variety Stage ~ Multiformat ~ 1870-1920 The American Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920 |
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| Washington, D.C. ~ Theodor Horydczak ~ Photographs ~ 1923-1959 Washington as It Was: Photographs by Theodor Horydczak, 1923-1959 Spanning from the mid 1920s through the 1950s, the Theodor Horydczak collection (about 14,350 photographs online) documents the architecture and social life of the Washington metropolitan area in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including exteriors and interiors of commercial, residential, and government buildings, as well as street scenes and views of neighborhoods. |
Discovering Theodor Horydczak's Washington Photographs of Washington, DC |
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Washington, George ~ Papers ~ 1741-1799 The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799 Collection contains nearly 65,000 documents including correspondence, letter books, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799. It is the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world. |
"Introduction" to The Diaries of George Washington Essays on the diaries of George Washington; Maps; Diagrams; Correspondence Essays about the George Washington Papers Descriptions of George Washington Papers; Essays
George Washington: Surveyor and Mapmaker
Timeline of George Washington's life; Images; Documents |
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Western U.S. ~ Photographs ~ 1860-1920 Over 30,000 photographs taken between 1860 and 1920 that 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. |
L.C. McClure and Denver, the City Beautiful Explanation of City Beautiful movement in Denver; Photographs
Native American Women
Description of 10th Mountain Division; Photographs |
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Whitman, Walt ~ Notebooks ~ 1850s & 1860s Poet at Work: Recovered Notebooks from the Thomas Biggs Harned Walt Whitman Collection This collection offers access to the four Walt Whitman Notebooks and a cardboard butterfly that disappeared from the Library of Congress in 1942. They were returned on February 24, 1995. |
LC's Missing Whitman Notes Found in N.Y. Library of Congress Gazette article on reappearance of notebooks and butterfly Library Scans Whitman Items; Preserves Them Library of Congress Gazette article on digitization of Whitman notebooks; Photograph The Conservation of the Whitman Notebooks Description of conservation process of Walt Whitman's notebook; Photographs |
| Woman Suffrage ~ Books and Pamphlets Collection consists of 167 books, pamphlets and other artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign. The collection includes works from the libraries of other members and officers of the organization including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Alice Stone Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, Elizabeth Smith Miller, Mary A. Livermore. |
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Woman Suffrage ~ Photographs and Prints ~ 1850-1920 By Popular Demand: "Votes for Women" Suffrage Pictures, 1850-1920 Collection of 38 pictures including portraits of many individuals who have been frequently requested from the holdings of the Prints and Photographs Division and the Manuscript Division. Also featured are photographs of suffrage parades, picketing suffragists, and an anti-suffrage display, as well as cartoons commenting on the movement. |
Time Line: One Hundred Years toward Suffrage Timeline of important events in women's suffrage; Photographs |
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Women's History ~ U.S. ~ Multiformat Gateway for Library of Congress researchers working in the field of American women's history. The site contains a slightly expanded and fully searchable version of the print publication American Women: A Library of Congress Guide for the Study of Women's History and Culture in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2001). |
"Rosie the Riveter: Real Women Workers in World War II" (Webcast) WebCast by Sheridan Harvey discussing Rosie the Riveter |
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Work and Leisure ~ Films ~ 1894-1915 America at Work, America at Leisure: Motion Pictures from 1894 - 1915 Collection includes 150 motion pictures of work, school, and leisure activities in the United States from 1894 to 1915. |
America at Work, School, and Leisure, 1894-1915 Films depicting American life from 1894-1915 |
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World War I and 1920 Election ~ Recordings American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election, 1918-1920 Collection consists of fifty-nine sound recordings of speeches by American leaders from 1918-1920. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding the First World War and the subsequent presidential election of 1920. Speakers include: Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John J. Pershing. Speeches range from one to five minutes. |
From War to Normalcy: An Introduction to the Nation's Forum Collection Biographical information on participants of Nations Forum; Audio; Photograph Speeches by famous leaders regarding WWI and 1920 election; Portraits; Audio |
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World War I ~ Military Newspapers ~ 1918-1919 The Stars and Stripes, 1918-1919 Collection includes the complete seventy-one-week run of the newspaper's World War I edition. The eight-page weekly featured news from home, sports news, poetry, and cartoons, with a staff that included journalists Alexander Woollcott, Harold Ross, and Grantland Rice. |
A Closer Look at The Stars and Stripes Details regarding The Stars and Stripes newspaper; Advertisements; Editorials; Photographs; Cartoons |
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World War I ~ Rotogravures ~ 1914-1919 Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures Collection includes an illustrated history of World War I selected from newspaper rotogravure sections that graphically documents the people, places, and events important to the war. |
Notable events and statistics of WWI; Tables; Photographs; Map Description of Lusitania disaster and American popular opinion; Photographs; Newspaper Military Technology in World War I Description of technology during WWI; Photographs; Newspapers Pictorial sections of newspapers during WWI; Retrograves; Cartoons; Illustrations Patriotic propaganda; Change in popular opinion; Photographs; Newspaper History of rotogravure Timeline of WWI; Photographs |
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Wright Brothers ~ Multiformat ~ 1881-1952 The Wilbur and Orville Wright Papers Collection of about 10,121 items documenting the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Included in the collection are correspondence, diaries and notebooks, scrapbooks, drawings, printed matter, and other documents, as well as the Wrights' collection of glass-plate photographic negatives. |
"The Belief that Flight is Possible to Man" Correspondence of Wright brothers; Photographs Highlights of Wright Brothers collection; Correspondence; Photographs; Diagrams Photography and the Wright Brothers Photographs taken of and by the Wright brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright Timeline Timeline of Wright brothers life; Photographs; Newspaper; Correspondence Family tree of Wright family; Photographs |