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Mark Twain’s Mississippi, American Revolution Documents, Lincoln/Net, and More
February 24, 2008
In the course of reviewing Alexander Street Press’ The Gilded Age (watch for the review in the April 1, 2008 LJ), I came across a reference to Drew VandeCreek at Northern Illinois University, upon whose work this new extraordinary product is based. I thought I’d Google him to see what the work was, and hit an electronic research bonanza!
At VandeCreek’s online C.V. (which hasn’t been updated in awhile, but A. that makes sense when you see what all he’s been doing, and B. better he’s working on the remarkable online history projects that you’ll see on his page than merely updating his vita!) I found links to:
Mark Twain’s Mississippi, “a multimedia database of historical materials shedding light upon the Mississippi Valley, 19830-1890… it presents fully searchable texts of over one hundred travelogues, gazetteers, emigrants' guides, and other accounts and descriptions of the Mississippi Valley in this period. The project also features over one thousand images depicting the Mississippi Valley, and a database of sound recordings of songs describing the region, made from period sheet music;”
American Archives Documents of the American Revolution, 1774-1776, an online project presenting “over 12,000 pages of primary source materials from the American Revolutionary era that were collected by Peter Force, a printer and mayor of Washington, in the 1830s. Many of these resources are lost in all other forms but the American Archives;”
Lincoln/Net, an online collection of “over fifteen million words of text, over 1500 images, sound and video materials in a fully searchable, free-use database. In addition, Lincoln/Net presents interpretive historical materials discussing Lincoln's biography in light of national events and eight major historical themes;”
as well as a host of other databases pertaining to Illinois and prairie history. These projects will be a treasure trove to historians of American history, obviously, and I’m going to watch VandeCreek’s vita for upcoming developments. Note well: Professor VandeCreek earned his Ph.D. in American History from The University of Virginia, whose press continues to produce remarkable research tools – so it’s no surprise one of their graduates has gone on to do the same.
More as it happens, historically and contemporaneously,
Cheryl
Posted by Cheryl LaGuardia on February 24, 2008 | Comments (0)
