Primary Source

The website for the University of Michigan's Center for the History of Medicine contains several areas of potential interest to researchers. An exhibit on polio contains a narrative about the disease and Dr. Thomas Francis' work against it, as well as many photographs and a bibliography. A listing of the university's historical medical films is available. There is also an interactive timeline regarding the history of the UM Medical School, and several links to related sites.

The Institute Archives serves as Caltech's collective memory, preserving the papers, documents, artifacts and pictorial materials that tell the school's history, from 1891 to the present. Holdings include manuscript, photographic, print and audio-visual materials, oral histories, fine art and historic artifacts. Many of the photographs are available in digital format (thumbnail and full size) through the photo archive. The site also includes information about using the physical archive, online versions of archive exhibits and facts about the Cal Tech archive.

The Dittrick Medical History Center is dedicated to the study of the medical past through a distinguished collection of rare books, museum artifacts, archives, and images. This web site includes images of exhibits and scientific instruments in the Dittrick Museum, images and annotations of samples from the 60,000 volume rare book collection, information about the archival collections and image collections. In addition, the site also hosts two virtual exhibits, "Haunting Images: Photography, Dissection and Medical Students," and "Smallpox: A City on the Edge of Disaster." Finally the site includes a section about research aids including on-line catalogues and bibliographical information.

Site, which has not been updated since 2002, contains some images of historical computing devices and lectures from Dr. Tim Bergin's History of Computing class at American University. A related bibliography is also made available.

An excellent resource for those interested in the impact the Internet has made on the lives of Americans. The site holds reports written by staff members and experts, multimedia presentations, data sets covering a variety of topics, press releases and a comprehensive set of links. Incredible amount of primary and secondary source material for researchers.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers History Center holdings include the IEEE Archives, which consist of the unpublished records of the IEEE and a collection of historical photographs relating to history of electrical and computer technologies, and a collection of oral history transcripts of pioneering engineers. IEEE History Center Newsletters are also archived (in PDF format). These newsletters provide information about the current activities of the Center, book reviews and a few articles about the history of electronic engineering.

Light! presented by the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam) and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), invites users to trace developments in lighting technology from the 1700s to the present by looking at the effects of light in several areas: science, economics, street, home, art, and entertainment. The exhibition combines images of objects and paintings with text arrayed on a background of bands of spectral colors. The home section begins with a pair of gilt candlesticks from 1807. Accompanying text points out that these golden candlesticks are not just prettier because they are shiny; they light better as well. This section concludes with an electric Tiffany lamp from 1907, and in between, includes the Van Gogh painting "The Potato Eaters," showing a peasant family eating potatoes in an interior lit by a meager kerosene lamp. Other objects of note are an Argand lamp in the economics section, the first lamp to exploit the discovery that flames burn brighter when fed by oxygen, and my favorite, a group of filament lightbulbs from the 1880s on a rack described in the caption as "various nationalities." The art section includes a live Webcam of the Statue of Liberty, and both the entertainment and science sections point out that many innovations in lighting originated in the theater.

A collection of some of the displays from the above mentioned exhibition. Includes audio files of lectures which were presented, as well as several related articles and activities. Of particular note is a section devoted to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki which contains images, oral histories submitted to the site, and links for further study.

In addition to basic materials such as a glossary, a links page and an introduction to the project, this site includes an online exhibit that focuses on significant bioscientists, video from the symposium, and digitized oral histories. The site also includes an internal search engine which should help users to move quickly through the information.

This site, developed by the Film Study Center at Harvard University, is an experimental, interactive case study that explores the remarkable 18th-century diary of midwife Martha Ballard. It examines how historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich pieced together the diary within a broader historical context to write the book A Midwife's Tale and offers a behind-the-scenes tour with filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt on the making of the film version, also called A Midwife's Tale. The site offers two versions of the 1400-page diary, facsimile and transcribed full-text; the latter is searchable by keyword and date. An archive offers images of more than 300 documents on such topics as Ballard's life, midwifery, birth, medical information, religion, and Maine history. It is searchable by document type, topic, author, and title. Also included are maps of North America (1795), Maine (1799), and Hallowell, Maine (1794); images of Augusta and Hallowell Maine; and a walking tour of Hallowell, Maine. A timeline traces Maine's history from the first attempt to settle the coastline in 1607, through Ballard's lifetime (1735-1812), to the 1997 release of the film A Midwife's Tale. Interactive exercises offer students the opportunity to transcribe and "decode" portions of the diary, and a "Magic Lens" makes it appear as if Ballard's handwriting is instantly transcribed. A drop-down menu offers suggestions on ways to use the site for conducting research on genealogy, midwifery and herbal medicine, and diaries, as well as for using primary sources. Of particular interest is a section on teaching with this Website, which includes 15 ideas for classroom activities and suggestions on how to customize the activities for different grade levels, as well as links to the teacher guides developed for the PBS film. Two "Doing History" exercises allow visitors to build a story around Ballard's notes about two controversies. The "On Your Own" section helps "beginning historians" organize and conduct research with ten 500-750 word essays describing the stages of a research project and offering step-by-step instructions on cultivating such research skills as reading 18th-century writing, reading probate records, searching for deeds, and exploring graveyards. There are also links to five additional Websites with further how-to information, a bibliography of over 125 related scholarly works, and 50 related Web sites. This rich site provides students and teachers with an ideal case study of the work involved in "piecing together the past."