Modern (18th-20th Century)

Partial listing of the archival holdings of the University of California San Francisco. Some material available online, particularly of note: the AIDS history Project, the Biotechnology Archives, and the Tobacco Control Archive. Also contains links to other UC archives and sites related to the history of the health sciences.

Contains an account of the life and work of Albrecht Von Haller, with bibliography. Site is entirely in German.

This site gives some brief information about the Australian Academy of Science and provides a description of manuscripts housed in the Academy's Basser Library. The site also contains an alphabetical index of the materials in the manuscript collection, which could be an important planning tool for researchers interested in taking a trip to the Library to do research with the papers first-hand. However, the actual manuscripts have not been made available online, so there is no historical information beyond the descriptions and index.

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.

Online presence for the Institute which collects scientific, medical, and technological material related to East Asia. The site contains links to the library catalog as well as a catalog of the archive Dr. Joseph Needham's documents located at the Cambridge University Library.

Website for the Einstein Papers Project, which has begun to publish an enormous amount of Einstein's papers, both personal and professional. No online resources, however, except for a link to the Einstein Archives Online, which reproduces a portion of the collection.

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.

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."

This American Memory site records the mapping of North America and the Caribbean from 1750 to 1789 through images of maps in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress. Most items on the site are also included among the 2000 images in Maps and Charts of North America and the West Indies, 1750-1789: A Guide to the Collections of the Library of Congress, compiled by John R. Sellers and Patricia Molen van Ee (1981). Currently the site contains roughly 2000 images. Maps and charts will be added to the online exhibit gradually. Selected images include original manuscript drawings by famous mapmakers like Samuel Holland, John Hills, and John Montresor; maps from the personal collections of men like Admiral Richard Howe and the comte de Rochambeau; and large groups of maps by three major 18th-century London publishers: Thomas Jeffreys, William Faden, and Joseph Frederick Wallet des Barres. The online collection allows researchers to compare editions, styles, and techniques of mapmakers from Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Holland, Italy, and the United States, and to follow the development of specific maps from the manuscript sketch to the finished, printed version. Each image is accompanied by descriptive notes (100-150 words) and a list of the medium, date and place of publication, condition, call number, and repository. The site also includes a 1500-word essay on mapmaking during the American Revolutionary era and links to 12 other American Memory sites containing related materials. Researchers can browse this site by geographic location, subject, creator, and title, and can search the site by keyword. This site is ideal for students and teachers interested in mapmaking in the 18th century and in exploring how maps helped to illustrate American culture.