Hightstown, New Jersey, 1935 street scene.
America from the Great Depression to World War II:
Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945 collection, Library of Congress
Click image for more bibliographic information.

Bethlehem (PA) Digital History Project
http://bdhp.moravian.edu/

Documents, including visitor's accounts of this Moravian settlement from 1741 to 1844.
(9 Feb 2004)

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LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIIA

Urban Renewal and the Changing Face of Lancaster
http://www.fandm.edu/Departments/AmericanStudies/faculty/schuyler/urbanrenewal/exhibittitle.html

This 1993 online research essay of Lancaster was organized by David Schuyler, Franklin & Marshall College, as part of the town's 250th founding celebration. The site "presents images and explanatory text that document the many dimensions of urban renewal and the impact of those changes on the city."
(16 Sep 2002)

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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

Cartographic Modeling Lab (University of Pennsylvania)
http://cml.upenn.edu/

Available to the public, these interactive mapping tools (including GIS) and databases are used by the lab to conduct academic research and urban and social policy analysis, with a focus on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
(10 Sep 2004)

Philadelphia 1876
http://libwww.library.phila.gov/CenCol/index.htm

This virtual exhibit includes an interactive virtual tour, a time line, illustrations and text. The approximately 1200 silver albumen photographs taken by the Centennial Photographic Company (CPC) may be of special interest to urban and architectural historians. The bibliography is quite complete. The site is mostly pedagogical in focus.
(28 Jul 2001)

Philadelpha - Maps and Geographic Information
http://www.library.upenn.edu/datasets/philamaps.html

Access site to the University of Pennsylvania Library's map holdings focused on Philadelphia.
(10 Sep 2004)

Philadelphia Timeline 1646-1899
http://www.ushistory.org/philadelphia/timeline/index.html

A quite comprehensive timeline from 1646 to the present, compiled by Rudolph J. Walther for the Independence Hall Association. The ushistory.org, owned by the Independence Hall Association, developed the timeline from excerpts of "Happenings in ye Olde Philadelphia 1680-1900" by Rudolph J. Walther (Philadelphia, PA: Walther Printing House, 1925)
(9 Feb 2004)

PLACES IN TIME: Historical Documentation of Place in Greater Philadelphia
http://www.brynmawr.edu/iconog/frdr.html

A collaborative of cultural institutions in Philadelphia put this site together. It is extremely rich in visual materials from city directories,postcard collections, architectural publications and real estate atlases, as well as photos and engravings. There is a limited number of texts, mostly available elsewhere, and a valuable list of theses (even at the M.A. and B.S. level). There are links to local institutions, many with other materials on-line. The introduction is a little clumsy.
(28 Jul 2001)

Still Home: The Jews of South Philadelphia
http://nmajh.org/exhibitions/stillhome/index.htm

The National Museum of American Jewish History has created this fascinating collection of oral history transcripts and photos of the elderly residents of a neighborhood that is changing.
(18 Jun 2001)

Temple University Libraries Urban Archive
http://www.library.temple.edu/urbana/index.htm

On-line inventory of a number of collections covering Philadelphia community, business, legal and crime, cultural, educational, health care, labor, planning, political, neighborhood, and women's groups. The archive, established in 1967 as an urban studies research facility to document "social, economic, and physical development of the Philadelphia area from the mid-19th century to the present," uses this website to list the contents of its book, pamphlet, newspaper, manuscript, oral history, photograph, television and audiovisual, and African American collections that largely require on-site research and use. The Manuscripts Collection (http://www.library.temple.edu/urbana/URBMSAB.htm) contains extensive urban documents.
(7 Jan 2002)

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PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

Historic Pittsburgh
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh/mainpage.html

This joint project by the University of Pittsburgh and the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society provides access to digitized books, maps, and archival collections documenting the history of the city of Pittsburgh, its residents, and the surrounding Allegheny County. The Full-Text Collection contains text and illustrations from more than 60 books. Also included are guides or finding aids to 64 archival collections, for example, Guide to the Records of Allegheny County Allied Boards of Trade, 1922-1940, and plat maps.
(28 Jul 2001)

Making Sense of Maps
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/maps/

This interactive, online instruction on how to use and evaluate maps as historical evidence was written by geography professor Dr. David T, Stephen, Youngstown State University, for the History Matters (http://www.historymatters.gmu.edu/) website at George Mason University. Of note is the use of panoramic views of Pittsburgh in 1871 and 1902 as models for teaching maps.
(11 Aug 2002)

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The Urban Landscape
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/diap/

This set contains about 1,000 images from the Digital Image Access Project Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, mostly southern with a strong emphasis on Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia. There are over 150 postcard images from roughly 1900-1960. The site is poorly maintained with numerous dead links.
(16 Nov 2001)

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The Virginia Historical Inventory (VHI)
http://ajax.lva.lib.va.us/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b-clas15&local_base=CLAS15

This website, created by the The Library of Virginia's Digital Library Program (DLP) and funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 1997, puts on-line a 1930's Works Progress Administration (WPA) survey, which reported on and often photographed more than 19,300 historic sites in the state. Many were in urban areas. Many of the buildings covered no longer survive. The VHI also includes more than 6,200 photographs, and 103 annotated county and city maps. The maps (unfortunately without Arlington County or Richmond) are uniquely referenced. For example, a map of the City of Norfolk about 100 locations. Clicking on the highlighted spots on the map will produce the name, report and sometimes photographs of an historic site. Perhaps because of its size, searches are very sluggish. The reports are photographed, not digitized, which can be clumsy.
(4 Jun 2001; updated 4 Feb 2004)

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RESTON, VIRGINIA

Planned Communities / New Towns (George Mason University)
http://www.gmu.edu/library/specialcollections/plancomm.html

This site contains very useful links to about twenty planned communities (some not really new towns in the classic sense), mostly in the U.S., but including places in Japan, Singapore and Finland. There is a brief history of the New Towns movement. It is especially valuable for images and a finding aid to a remarkably complete archive for Reston, Virginia, planned in the 1960s. The physical archives for this site are maintained by the George Mason University Fenwick Library at Fairfax, Virginia and sponsored by the Planned Community Archives, Inc. Unfortunately there is no information on authorship, date created or planned updates of the site. (Gina Dreistadt provided sponsor information.)
(1 Oct 2001)

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RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

The Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake Bay Region, ca. 1600-1925
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lhcbhtml/

This addition to American Memory Project contains 139 digitized texts of the Chesapeake region, including such cities as Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Richmond. The site includes first-person narratives, early histories, historical biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs for the period from European discovery to roughly 1925. It seems especially strong on illustrated works and traveller's descriptions. Women and minorities don't have voices.
(28 Jul 2001; updated 8 Aug 2002)

Link also listed under Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C.

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WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia

Williamsburg Theater Project
http://www.wm.edu/CAS/ASP/WTP/

Arthur Knight, Associate Professor of American Studies and English at the College of William and Mary, has assembled a history of the movies in Williamsburg, Virginia, including a searchable database of all the movies that ever played in the town. There are also "contextual materials, including photos, census records, and timelines."
(26 June 2003)

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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

HistoryLink: The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History
http://www.historylink.org/this_week/index.cfm

A popular site including a timeline, transcripts of oral histories with scandinavian immigrants and short popular essays with a few maps and photos. It is not yet the encyclopedia that it wants to be. Good links and credits, but no bibliography.
(18 Jun 2001; updated 17 Nov 2004)

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Milwaukee Urban Archives
http://www.csd.uwm.edu/Dept/Library/arch/

Includes several virtual museum exhibits, abstracts and descriptions of a number of municipal, ethnic, photo, corporate, philanthropic, and church holdings. Few photos. Superb local collection.
(28 Jul 2001)

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