York, Maine - History

History

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see"

The quote by Winston Churchill presents an excellent practical reason for studying history. However, history can also be studied for the pure pleasure of reading an engaging story about past events. Whatever your intent, you will find that the internet will provide you with easily accessible research material, historical photographs, and narratives. The sites below have been selected to merely illustrate the variety of historical material available on the internet. Use your favorite search engine to find information on an historical topic that interests you.
If you don't find a particular topic below, use Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. If the subject is controversial or recent, click on the "discussion" tab to see if there are any negative comments about the article. Suppose you are interested in President Herbert Hoover. Put "herbert hoover" in the Wikipedia search box. You will find a very extensive article. Click on the "discussion" tab and you will find a number of negative comments about the article. Caveat emptor!

Local and Regional History

Old York Historical Society
www.oldyork.org
The Old York Historical Society was founded more than one hundred years ago to preserve the history and artifacts of York, Maine - America's first chartered city (1632) and one of New England's earliest colonial settlements. Offering thirty-seven period room settings and several galleries housed throughout eight historic museum buildings, The Museums of Old York showcases a wealth of early New England art, architecture, and decorative arts.

Maine Historical Society
www.mainehistory.org
This is a marvelously rich site. The Maine Historical Society (MHS) is a major research library and manuscript repository. The Research Library houses many original sources such as diaries, correspondence, account books, scrapbooks, ships' logs, architectural and engineering drawings, as well as the personal and business papers of individuals and organizations. The collection contains an estimated 2 million pages, covering a period from the late 15th century to the present.

Historic New England
www.historicnewengland.org
Formerly SPNEA (The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities), the organization was founded in 1910 to protect New England's cultural and architectural heritage. Its museums are located throughout Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The Web site describes the collections and holdings and provides a photographic tour of several historic properties.

American History

Presidential Libraries
www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries
Links to the Presidential Libraries and Museums provided by the National Archives and Records Administration.

Historical Documents
www.law.ou.edu/hist
From the University of Oklahoma College of Law - pre-colonial to the present.

Documenting the American South (DAS)
docsouth.unc.edu
This scholarly site was developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and "is a collection of sources on Southern history, literature and culture from the colonial period through the first decades of the 20th century." DAS includes 1,049 books and manuscripts in electronic format with more on the way. This site is a good in-depth introduction to the South's history and historical perspective, the latter often ignored in our Northern schools.

Western History and Genealogy
history.denverlibrary.org/images/index.html
The photography collection of the Denver Public Library. An online database contains a large selection (120,000 images!) of historic photographs from the collections (over one million images) of the Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department and the Colorado Historical Society. The photographs are of Native Americans, pioneers, early railroads, mining, Denver and Colorado towns.

Indian History
www.csulb.edu/colleges/cla/departments/ais/
This site, developed by California State University, Long Beach, contains many links to sites on the Indians of North America, the Indians of Central America and Mexico, and tribe and nation homepages. Some of the links are "dead". I have no control over this.

History and Politics Out Loud
www.hpol.org
An archive of politically significant audio files - selected Nixon Watergate recordings, selected Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches, President Roosevelt asking Congress to declare war on Japan, and others.

World History

World War II Resources
www.ibiblio.org/pha
This unpretentious site is a goldmine of original source material on World War II. Examples - French diplomatic documents (1938-39), Nazi-Soviet relations 1938-39 (from the Archives of the German Foreign Office), The Japanese Monographs (including Pearl Harbor Operations), Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings (5000+ pages of documents), and much more.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Museum, and Digital Archives
www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu
See especially the British, German, and Vatican diplomatic files.

Orb:The Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
www.the-orb.net
An academic site, written and maintained by medieval scholars for the benefit of instructors and students. Also has links to other medieval studies sites.

Islam Primer
www.infoplease.com/spot/islam.html
An online primer on Islam from Infoplease.

Avalon Project at Law School
www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon
Online documents in law, diplomacy, and history.

Best of History Web Sites
www.besthistorysites.net
This is probably a good place to start your search. An award-winning portal that contains annotated links to over 1000 history Web sites. "BOHWS has been recommended by The Chronicle of Higher Education, The National Council for the Social Studies, The British Library Net, The New York Public Library, the BBC, Princeton University, -- and many others."

General

Digital History
hnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory
This online "book provides a plainspoken and thorough introduction to the Web for historians — teachers and students, archivists and museum curators, professors as well as amateur enthusiasts — who wish to produce online historical work, or to build upon and improve the projects they have already started in this important new medium." Authored by Daniel J. Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig of the George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Additional links:

American Studies