Professional Association

Website for the United Kingdom's Institution of Civil Engineers, a charity devoted to promoting civil engineering. Researchers will be interested in the documents made available in their virtual library, which archives all ICE papers to 1836. These are accessible with a subscription or on a pay per view basis. A catalog of the Institution's library holdings and is also available, as are a number of free ICE documents. The site also contains links to a number of associated societies.

This comprehensive site focuses on the history of the 1965 blackout in the Northeastern United States and the 1977 blackout in New York City. These two landmark events in the history of technology and the cultural history of America are recounted in a number of ways: through interviews, excerpts from various media, a timeline of events, recent historical writing, and, most compellingly, a growing database of first-hand recollections entered by visitors to the site. These recollections cover both the behind-the-scenes experiences of those who worked for the utility companies and the people who lived through the events. The site is therefore an excellent example of how to create an oral history archive on the Web, as well as a good source for understanding the tremendous social, cultural and technological impact the blackouts had on the people who lived through them.

The Forest History Society site can be used to begin research on the history of forestry in the United State and abroad. The site contains a history of the U.S. Forest Service, including photographs, bios, and descriptions of ranger experiences. The site also provides an online, annotated guide to the Forest History Society's archival collections and a description of materials available at the Society's library. There are links to current websites for the organizations with materials in the collection, and a search tool for finding collections at other institutions. Curriculums for school children, a sample of the Society's journal, Environmental History, and descriptions of the organization's current activities are also available. The site is basic, easily navigated, and well maintained.

Website maintained by The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, an organization began in 1787 to provide education about and improve public health. Contains general information about the College Gallery and the Mutter Museum. Several former exhibits are reproduced online, such as "Emerging Infectious Diseases: Ancient Scourge and Modern Menace" and "When the Patient is the President." A database cataloging their historical OB-GYN instrument collection makes available images and descriptions of over 1,200 tools. The College's library catalog is also online. A link to Philadelphia-related health information is provided as well.

This site offers films selected from the Prelinger Archives, a privately held collection of 20th-century American ephemeral films (films produced for specific purposes at specific times, not intended for long-term preservation). The site contains more than 800 high-quality digital video files documenting various aspects of 20th-century North American culture, society, leisure, history, industry, technology, and landscape. It includes films produced between 1927 and 1987 by and for U.S. corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Some of the films depict ordinary people in normal daily activities, such as working, dishwashing, driving, and learning proper behavior. For example, one 1955 film illustrates the ¨comfort and delight of jet travel for Pan American World Airways and a 1930s film shows how and where bananas were grown and imported into the United States. The site contains an alphabetical index and printable list of all film titles. Note that viewing these movies requires a DSL or faster connection and, even with a fast connection, many of the movies take several minutes to load. This is an important source for those interested in American Studies, business and labor history, advertising and art history, cinema studies, and cultural history.

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.

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.

This site has not been updated since 1999, but nonetheless contains excellent primary source material for researches who are interested in one of the two topics on which material was collected: the Clean Air Act and and the GATE experiment of the Global Atmospheric Research program. Both areas include general histories, primary documents, images, interviews, biographies, and links for further study.

The American Institute of Physics has combined exhibits with educational syllabi, and archives in this deep site. Included are exhibits about Madame Currie, Albert Einstein, the electron, the transistor and Werner Heisenberg and the Uncertainty Principle. Archives include thousands of digitized images in the Emilio Sagres visual archive, and the book and manuscript catalogue of the Neils Bohr library. The site also includes online syllabi and sample readings for history of physics teachers, information about accessing information at AIP, and online newsletters relating to the library and Center for History of Physics.

This site provides essays, timelines, and personal recollections of the history of research on plasmids, extremophiles and second generation antibiotics. Currently, only the plasmid portion of the site is fully developed. A timeline of plasmid research outlines major breakthroughs from 1903-1969, a glossary covers most of the important terms related to the field, and an extensive bibliography covers published papers on plasmids from the 1940s and 50s. Microbiologists and others involved with plasmid research can add their comments and recollections to the site's archive. In addition, the site contains links to other sites and professional associations interested in the history of microbiology.