General Interest
http://advertising.harpweek.com/
During the 19th century, one of the most consistently popular American periodicals was Harper's Weekly, an illustrated paper whose circulation was well in excess of over 100,000 on a regular basis. This fine site highlights some of the many creative and inventive advertisements that were prominently displayed in the periodical during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The project was the brainchild of John Adler, a longtime history buff, who came across a complete set of the periodical for the period from 1857 to 1916. On the site visitors can browse through advertisements for appliances, insurance, foreign travel, farm land, and various medicinal potions. The selection of ads includes one for "pain paint," which begins with a brief doggerel that includes a mention of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. [KMG]
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2002/brucke/index.html
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) presents Artists of Brücke, its first Web-only exhibition, showcasing over 120 German Expressionist prints created by Erich Heckel and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (founders of the Brücke movement), Otto Mueller, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. The site discusses the Brücke movement and its artists' beliefs, explores eight themes in Expressionist Art (such as City, Cabaret, Retreat, Nudes), and includes artists' biographies. The Prints section of the site makes terrific use of the Web and Flash animation. An array of thumbnails of all the works in the show can be sorted to highlight particular artists, themes, or mediums. Mousing over any print brings up a slightly larger view and the artist, title and date, while clicking retrieves the full view, with complete caption. Also available are a chronology of the Expressionist movement, a map of the area where Brücke artists lived and worked, suggested readings, and a textual list of all the works in the exhibition. [DS]
Cultural landscapes are truly omnipresent in the environment around us, as they can range in form and character from an ethnic urban enclave to a well-designed city park that incorporates a wide range of uses, such as New York's Central Park. The Cultural Landscape Foundation website provides visitors with some initial observations about the importance of preserving (and creating) compelling landscapes across the United States, along with offering some valuable resources for those with an interest in the field. The site provides some basic information about the Foundations' activities, and also make available the Cultural Landscapes as Classroom outreach program for perusal. Within each Cultural Landscapes as Classroom module, visitors can explore a different cultural landscape (the ones currently available feature Columbus Park in Chicago and the Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge), and learn about each landscape's creation and historical development. [KMG]
Crafts are back in fashion, and it would seem that a younger generation is ready to put its own imprimatur on this time-honored tradition. As the website indicates, Crafster.org is for "People who have crafty urges, but who are not excited by cross-stitched bunnies and crocheted paper cozies, can show off their current craft projects, ask advice on future projects and get inspiration for new endeavors." The site is truly interactive, as users can view completed projects that they may want to try out, ask questions of other craftsters, and offer suggestions to inquiring minds. Visitors may want to get started by looking at some of the featured projects on the left-hand side of the page. Some of the more fun projects profiled here include glass marble magnets, record bowls, and cell phone cozies. [KMG]
http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition/
While most people get on the road each morning around the U.S. to drive to work, they may not think of how the massive interstate system first emerged in the years following World War II. That rather interesting question, along with a number of other transportation themes, is covered in this fine online collection from the Smithsonian Institution. Designed to complement this new exhibit at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., visitors can start at the exhibition section, which is divided into 17 different thematic sections, coupled with a host of visual images, and photographs of the actual exhibit. Even more fun is the collections area, where users of the site can search or browse through the online transportation collection which includes more than a thousand different artifacts and photographs. The site is rounded out by a nice selection of related teaching resource materials and some quirky interactive games where individuals can create their own movie using vehicles from the collection or play a match game involving vehicles from different periods of America's history. [KMG]
http://www.archive.org/movies/movies.php
Since 1996, the Internet Archive has been crawling the web and caching various incarnations of thousands of websites for a variety of reasons, not the least among them the fact that this great archive offers a valuable perspective on the history of the Internet. While most people are content to look at old versions of various websites, the creative people at the Internet Archive have also created this wonderful Moving Images Archive which contains thousands of various educational films, television commercials, and a number of other visual materials. The best part is that viewers can add their comments about the films after watching them. Of course, visitors can perform keyword searches within the Archive or view lists of the most popular films located here. One rather amusing film is the social hygiene educational adventure titled Are You Popular? (from 1947), which shows examples of proper and improper dating etiquette and how to be courteous to one's parents. [KMG]
Center for Faulkner Studies
http://www6.semo.edu/cfs/
William Faulkner Reads [RealOnePlayer]
http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/080294_harp_ITH.html
Even four decades after his death, the monumental legacy of William Faulkner to American letters remains of great importance, and there are a number of websites that commemorate his life and work through various events, conferences, and publications about various aspects of Faulkneria. One such entity is the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Established in 1989 under the direction of Robert Hamblin, the core of the Center's holdings consists of the Brodsky Collection, which itself contains over 2000 pages of manuscript materials and more than 3000 letters. Visitors to the site can search the contents of the Brodsky Collection and search a rather novel area called (appropriately) Faulkneria. Here visitors will find the online archives of the Teaching Faulkner newsletter, some of his most famous quotes, and recent so-called sightings of Faulkner, as referenced in film and television. The second site leads to a site where visitors can listen to Faulkner read excerpts from "As I Lay Dying," "The Old Man," and his much lauded 1949 Nobel Prize acceptance speech. [KMG]
