For a Workshop
Presented by Sara W. Tucker
Professor of History, Washburn University
Summer 1998

Below find an introductory assortment of useful web resources, in some way related to the teaching of 1940s US & Kansas history in the public schools. Note that it was created spring 1998 but, by request, left up online since then. The links have been checked and updated several times since then. Nevertheless some may no longer work, or have changed character.

Specific-focus content websites:

These are sites that provide specific content on one distinct topic (as vs sites providing only links to other sites).  (These are particularly rich in women's sites because I just taught a women's history course; there are doubtless many more 1940s good ones out there to be discovered by further web searching.)

What Did You Do in the War Grandma?: http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/WWII_Women/tocCS.html.A Tucker favorite site, both for its contents (WWII oral history interviews with women) and as a model for what is possible on the web, given enough collaboration between schools and universities - and funding agencies.

Pictures of African Americans During World War II - Select Audiovisual Records: http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/african_americans_during_wwii/african_americans_during_
world_war_2.html  A list of hotlinked online photographs from National Archives.

The History Place - World War Two in the Pacific photos 1942-1946: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/pacificwar/index.html and also The History Place - World War Two in the Pacific Timeline 1941-1945: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/pacificwar/timeline.htm.  Lots of good photos from the National Archives, plus a few useful maps.

Powers of Persuasion: Poster Art from World War II: http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_home.html.  Contains dozens of US WWII poster images; very useful source for classroom use images.

Engendering Consent: World War II Posters and the Homefront: http://web.arts.ubc.ca/history/ww2prop/prop.htm.  A Canadian site, put together for use by (college?) classes, so begins with a helpful short introductory essay of the Canadian situation at outbreak, and the marketing strategies used.

America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FAS_OWI, 1935-1945: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html A huge searchable collection of black & white plus some color photographs, probably valuable mostly for the Depression, but also containing lots taken during WWII by the Office of War Information. A search of the combined collections, asking for "Kansas + War" produced at least a few photos of Kansas wartime RR and aircraft manufacturing, but probably more useful for general-US homefront images.

Fighters on the Farm Fron: Oregon's Emergency Farm Labor Service, 1943-1947: http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/osu/osuhomepage.html  An Online Exhibit done by people at the Oregon State University and Archives, so not quite Kansas, but definitely close enough to provide context to what was happening on Kansas farms.

War Location Authority Camps in Arizona, 1942-1946: http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/jpamer/wraintro.html  A very effective online exhibit done by U of Arizona archivists, containing a number of photographs, a map, and a few documents and print references.

A People At War: http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/a_people_at_war/a_people_at_war.html A National Archives exhibit providing a very basic, introductory-level survey of the different kinds of Americans involved in the War, and the roles played.

Women at War: Redstone's WWII Female "Production Soldiers": http://wwwsun.redstone.army.mil/history/women/welcome.html. A serious but readable paper (originally written as a conference paper by a US government historian) about the women workers at the Huntsville, Alabama chemical munitions plant. Illustrated by a nice assortment of photographs; a nice secondary source for student research or a source of some good inclass digital photos.

Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers and Broadcasters During World War II: http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/wcf/wcf0001.html. An Library of Congress digital exhibit. Spotlights eight women photographers, with nice profiles and then links to various original documents concerning each. At least a start to student research on any one of them. Also has brief essays setting general context, and much longer list of accredited women correspondents during WWII.

WASP- WWII: http://www.wasp-wwii.org/. Just what it sounds like it might be about: a webpage devoted to Women Airforce Service Pilots in WWII. Some useful photos, documents and hotlinks, and a beginning collection of lesson plans,etc.

Auschwitz Alphabet: http://www.spectacle.org/695/ausch.html. Clearly the work of one author with a very personal sense of the meaning of the holocaust, but a very effective presentation, with sources clearly explained, containing a very limited number of illustrations, lots of effective excerpts, and also a list of some other links.

Cold War Policies 1945-1991 (U. San Diego): http://ac.acusd.edu/History/20th/coldwar0.html. Maintained by Steve Schoenherr of USD, with very useful details of the topic, plus quite a few illustrations and a few document excerpts, etc. Really good background information and digital illustrations for teachers.

1948: Year of Turmoil and Triumph: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/truman/1948exh.htm A digital version of the exhibit currently at the Truman Center. Gives bits and pieces sense of complex mix of happenings, including desegregation of armed forces and Berlin Airlift.

Baseball, the Color Line, and Jackie Robinson: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/jrhtml/jrabout.html. Library of Congress American Memory online exhibit, which includes two sections on 1940s (Breaking the Color Line: 1940-1946 & Robinson as a Dodger 1947-1956), with some illustrating photographs and other images, excerpts from interviews, etc.

Beyond the Playing Field: Jackie Robinson, Civil Rights Advocate: http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/robinson/robmain.html. Really focuses on the period after Robinson's playing days, so out of the 1940s era. But an excellent example of the National Archives Digital Classroom assortment of documents and lesson plans.
 

Specifically Kansas:

Kansas State Historical Society Homepage: http://www.kshs.org/index.htm. The basic starting place for Kansas history.

The Kansas Collection: http://www.kancoll.org/  Mostly 19th century resources, with a scattering of things about the 20th century (but nothing much on the 1940s). But well worth knowing about when teaching other eras of Kansas history.

Kansas Web: http://www.washlaw.edu/kansas/kansas.html.  This is the website maintained by Washburn's Law School, with many useful links to all kinds of Kansas-topic websites.

Kansas Heritage Group: http://history.cc.ukans.edu/heritage/index.html and Kansas History Websites: http://www.ku.edu/heritage/kshistory/.  Focused on 19th century Kansas (so off this year's Seminar topic, but worth knowing about for other eras); also has a lot of good links to other Kansas websites, including sources of several maps, some good images, etc.

KTWU Public TV Homepage: http://ktwu.wuacc.edu/index.html   Gives schedule of future programs, including those focused on Kansas (see especially Sunflower Journeys: http://ktwu.wuacc.edu/journeys/), special information on borrowing KTWU past programs, teachers' links and tips, etc.

Big Gateway Sites:

These are the ones that are  rich in many smaller focused exhibits and/or have links to lots of related sites.

Especially useful US history sites:

Truman Presidential Library & Museum Homepage:  http://www.trumanlibrary.org and for teachers especially the Truman Library's Project Whistlestop Digital Archive: http://www.whistlestop.org/index.htm. The whole Truman Library website is a very useful gateway to digital copies of documents, photos, sound files and other holdings. Also includes lots of useful secondary essays, a workable seach engine, lesson plans and further suggested web links.

Library of Congress American Memory Project: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html
A huge, immensely useful resource for American history teachers. Worth visiting often to get to know it generally. It has seach engines to look throughout its digital holdings for specific items and topics; it also has focused collections and online exhibits.

National Archives Digital Classroom: http://www.nara.gov/education/classrm.htmland within it especially National Archives Digital Classroom Primary Source Page: http://www.nara.gov/education/teaching/teaching.html The Digital Classroom includes many useful links to a number of specific-topic NA pages plus, under the links to other activities section, links to a number of worksheets designed to help students (and teachers!) begin the task of examining photographs, posters, and other non-document kinds of primary sources.

American History: Civil War to the Present (Supplemental Website)s: http://hum.lss.wisc.edu/hist102/   A lesson to us all in just how good an online course supplement can be. This one, intended as a supplement to the TV course it accompanies, gives great links to primary sources, web sites, print bibliographies, and other things.

Other Gateway sites worth knowing about, but not yet as rich as above, or somewhat off topic:

Eisenhower Center: http://history.cc.ukans.edu/heritage/abilene/ikectr.html. Not yet as well developed  a website as the Truman one, but with some value.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library & Museum: http://www.academic.marist.edu/fdr/fdrintro.htm

New Deal Network: http://newdeal.feri.org/

White House Website's Presidential Biographies: http://www2.whitehouse.gov/WH/glimpse/presidents/html/presidents.html. Brief profiles of each president and his first lad(ies), with perhaps one photo each.
 

Websites Rich in Links:

These are the ones that are valuable especially or perhaps exclusively as links to lots of sites all on the same topic.

WWII Timeline: http://acunet.net/user/donald20/Timelines/SWW.htm.  A fairly extensive timeline, with its real value in the many hotlinked terms within it that then lead you to lots of specific-focus WWII-related websites.

Yahoo WWII Website List: http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/World_War_II/. Yahoo list of links to WWII websites: generally useful.

The About.com 20th Century History WWII Page: http://history1900s.miningco.com/msub8.htm.
One small subsection of an overall very useful, web resource: About.com ( http://about.com/ ), with its hundreds of links to lists on all sorts of topics (each full of links found and kept up to date by paid "guides,It never hurts to see if there is an About.com page on any topic for which one has to search the web. Do note that, although the Guides act as something of a filter for truly terrible sites, the academic value of included sites varies greatly. This is not a resource to send students to unsupervised.

World War II: http://www.hist.unt.edu/09w-amw4.htm.  A very extensive, subdivided, list of  WWII websites.  All in some way relate to US involvement in the war.  No description beyond each hotlinked site's title, but most are pretty descriptive as is. Very valuable gateway to the extent of good websites on the topic.

WWII Battles and Campaigns (Yahoo List of Websites):    http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/World_War_II/Battles_and_Campaigns/. Lots and lots of links to lots of websites, some very useful. Takes time to surf through them all.

WWII Personal Accounts (Yahoo Web Link List) http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/World_War_II/Personal_Accounts/

World War II: Propaganda (Yahoo site): http://web.arts.ubc.ca/history/ww2prop/prop.htm  The usual Yahoo site, providing a number of links to websites on the topic.

The Holocaust (Yahoo Links): http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/Holocaust__The/  As usual with Yahoo hotlink lists, a good place to start websurfing on this topic.

Concentration Camps: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/cc.html.  Created by the American-Israeli Cooperation Enterprise. Grim stuff, but contains links to lots of important sites.

The Marshall Plan (National Archives) Site: http://www.nara.gov/nara/naralibrary/news/marshall.html A small but useful assortment of documents excerpts, illustrated & hotlinked scholarly essay, and list of links to other sites.

The Atomic Bomb (Yahoo List of Websites): http://www.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/History/20th_Century/World_War_II/Atomic_Bomb__The/.  Useful list of a number of the most useful websites on the Manhattan Project, the Enola Gay (including the recent Smithsonian Exhibit controversy), and the actual decision to and bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Include photographs, documents, essays.

Voice of the Shuttle Web Page for Humanities Research: http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/  One of the most broadly valuable interdisciplinary sites for both web links and online documents.

The Homefront: http://www.nauticom.net/www/harts/homefront.html.  A website that still confuses Tucker some, and leaves her unable to nail down the authors (they are the Harts, and one of them has a tribute that offers a clue, but...). However, since it is a site of links to other places, it seems too rich not to add to the list. This link takes you into the Homefront subpage of a page that seems to have no central entry! But since the site is in frames, you can click on "army, " "navy," etc in the left top frame to go into other subpages. In "Homefront" page, the Radio Propaganda link looks good.


Various Useful Reference and Professional-Interest Sites:
 
Professional Resources for Teachers & Historians:

H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences OnLine: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/ A huge, and always expanding, network of special-focus networks all run by and for academics. Each subnetwork has its own discussion list and website. While most of its lists focus especially on university level teaching and scholarship, it welcomes all serious academics, and has several networks especially for secondary teachers (H-High-S, Teaching High School History & Social Studies: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~highs/).

History/Social Studies Web Site for K-12 Teachers: http://www.execpc.com/~dboals/boals.html  A very rich site, well worth consulting often.

Score OnLine Resources for Education - History-Social Science Resources: http://www.rims.k12.ca.us/SCORE/.  Hosted by the Schools of California; another broadly-useful site.

Social Studies Sources: http://education.indiana.edu/~socialst/ This one is from the Indiana University School of Education, and is again broadly useful.

Teaching History: A Journal of Methods: http://www.emporia.edu/socsci/journal/main.htmThe journal says its goal is to provide history teachers at all levels the "best and newest ideas ideas for their classrooms."  Look at it especially for its articles and its many helpful weblinks.

About.com Homepage: http://about.com/. Already discussed above. A good gateway for a first look at lots of websites on a topic. Wide variety of level and value of sites linked.

Finding E-Mail Discussion Lists:

H-Net Discussion Network Directory: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/lists/ Lots and lots of very high quality, moderated lists, all focused on some aspect of humanities and or social science academic study or teaching.

Doing Oral History:

H-Oralhist: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~oralhist/The H-Net webpage for its Oral History network. A very good starting point gateway to lots of help and resources for anyone interested in doing oral history.From here one can join the discussion list and find links to lots of oral history websites containing guides to doing oral history, teachers resources, sample permission forms, etc.

Oral History Techniques: How to Organize and Conduct Oral History Interviews: http://www.indiana.edu/~ohrc/pamph1.htm.  From Indiana University's Oral History Research Center Site, this online "pamphlet" offers not only a very good overview of what is involved, but also sample deed of gift and informed consent forms, plus a selected bibliography.

UC Berkeley Regional Oral History Office Homepage: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BANC/ROHO/This often-improved site now includes easily print-outable guides (including "The One Minute Guide")

Miami Valley Cultural Heritage Project Homepage: http://MiaVX1.MUOhio.Edu/~OralHxCWIS/index.htmlx.  Lots of good resources and links here, including a Student Interviewing Guide, another sample Release Form, and all sorts of links to oral history resources for teachers, both web and non-web..

Doing History Day:

National History Day Homepage: http://www.nationalhistoryday.org/

KSHS History Day in Kansas: http://www.kshs.org/you/histday.htm

National Archives' Research and National History Day Site: http://www.nara.gov/education/historyday/history.html

History-Related TV Websites: useful both for information on upcoming history-related broadcasts and for supplemental web resources

The History Channel: http://www.historychannel.com/index2.html

PBS History page: http://www.pbs.org/history/.  PBS has lots of very useful, effective stuff. Offers teachers guides and online student activities for various topics.

The History Place: http://www.historyplace.com/   Limited number of online exhibits, but these are good.

Maps:

Maps Online: http://www.eduplace.com/ss/ssmaps/index.html Outline maps - a limited number US and World ones, some physical and some current political. Free to print out or download for personal (including classroom) use; from Houghton Mifflin's Education Place website.

Perry-Castaneda Library Historical Maps of the United States: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/histus.html. This site contains thousands of useful digital maps, all of which seem to be available for teaching use without copyright restrictions.

Florida Geographic Alliance Resource Page: http://fga.freac.fsu.edu/resources.htm

About.com Geography Page Maps & Geography of the World: http://geography.miningco.com/library/maps/blindex.htm. Links on this page lead you to all sorts of useful blank and "filled in" maps - all fairuse for academic purposes.

Search Engine:

Google: http://www.google.com.This continues to be Tucker's favorite search engine for all teaching topics. If you click on the "Image" tab, it will not only search specifically for image, but come up with a whole page of thumbsize versions of found images, each of which is a link to the page on which it can be found.

Online Style Manuals:

Chicago (Turabian) Style Manual: http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/DocChicago.html,  Very useful for anyone trying to teach students how to use the standard college-level history citation form.

H-Net Style Guide for Internet Sources: http://h-net2.msu.edu/~africa/citation.html   One of the best guides to how to cite sources found on the internet.

Student "How To" Guides:

A College Student's Guide to Reading, Writing and Researching History:  http://academic.bowdoin.edu/WritingGuides/. While intended for beginning college students, also very useful for more advance high school ones, and a useful starting point for teachers planning to write their own.

Web Review Criteria: http://www.washburn.edu/cas/history/stucker/webreview.html  Created for Tucker web review assignments; suggestions for improvement gratefully received.