This collection uses primary sources to compare and explore the relationships between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the history, successes, and failures of the Freedmen's Bureau during Reconstruction. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

From the earliest days of settlement and migration, the people of North America have relied on maps and mapping to understand their environment and place within it. Maps have helped Americans prospect investments, comprehend war, and plan leisure in places unknown. As Americans have used maps to explore the U.S., capitalize on its resources, and displace its Native peoples, maps have shaped American cultural ideas about travel, place, and ownership. This exhibit explores the cultural and historic impact of mapping through four specific moments in American history: migration along the Oregon Trail, the rise of the lumber industry, the Civil War, and the popularization of the automobile and individual tourism. It concludes with a look at maps in the age of computers, the Internet, and beyond. These moments demonstrate the influence maps have had over how Americans imagine, exploit, and interact with national geographies and local places. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Digital Curation Program by the following students in Professor Helene Williams's capstone course at the Information School at the University of Washington: Greg Bem, Kili Bergau, Emily Felt, and Jessica Blanchard. Additional revisions and selections made by Greg Bem.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the steam engine and transportation in the nineteenth century. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Three years before the United States entered World War II, President Roosevelt declared the South to be "the nation's number one economic problem." Georgia's economy was distinctly agricultural and low-wage, with little manufacturing compared with states in the North and Midwest. The median family income was nearly half of the national average. One year later, an influx of federal defense money established new industries, such as the Bell Aircraft plant in Marietta, and expanded existing ones, such as the J. A. Jones Construction Company in Brunswick. While 320,000 Georgians served in the United States Armed Forces, tens of thousands of Georgians repaired aircraft, built B-29 bombers, and worked in shipyards at home during the war. Meanwhile, military training was widespread throughout Georgia, occupying its fields as well as skies. Capitalizing on the state's flat coastal region and mild winters, Army airfields were installed in Savannah, Statesboro, Thomasville, and Waycross, and pilots trained in Albany, Augusta, Americus, and Douglas. Thousands of soldiers passed through Fort Benning and Fort Oglethorpe, where members of the Women's Army Corps trained for positions at home and abroad. World War II employment was crucial to the economic development of the state, ushering in the transformation to a modern, industrial, and diverse Georgia. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA's Public Library Partnerships Project by collaborators from the Digital Library of Georgia and Georgia's public libraries. Exhibition organizers: Mandy Mastrovita and Greer Martin.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the golden age of musical theatre on Broadway. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Tuning into the radio is now an integrated part of our everyday lives. We tune in while we drive, while we work, while we cook in our kitchens. Just 100 years ago, it was a novelty to turn on a radio. The radio emerged at the turn of the twentieth century, the result of decades of scientific experimentation with the theory that information could be transmitted over long distances. Radio as a medium reached its peak—the so-called Radio Golden Age—during the Great Depression and World War II. This was a time when the world was rapidly changing, and for the first time Americans experienced those history-making events as they happened. The emergence and popularity of radio shifted not just the way Americans across the country experienced news and entertainment, but also the way they communicated. This exhibition explores the development, rise, and adaptation of the radio, and its impact on American culture.

This collection uses primary sources to explore John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the life and political impact of Henry Clay. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

For many Americans, their fondest memories revolve around a library card. From searching through the stacks, to getting a return date stamped on the back of a new favorite book, libraries are a quintessential part of how Americans learn and engage with their local communities. Since this country’s founding, public libraries have received broad and consistent popular support for their democratic missions and services. The ability to access free information has become a core ideal of what it means to be an American citizen, despite periods of historic inequality. Libraries help make this access possible by placing public benefit at the center of their work and continually adapting their strategies to meet changing public needs over time. This exhibition tells the story of the American public library system, its community impact, and the librarians who made it possible—from the founding of the first US libraries through the first one hundred years of service. This exhibition was created as part of the DPLA’s Public Library Partnerships Project in collaboration with partners and participants from Digital Commonwealth, Digital Library of Georgia, Minnesota Digital Library, Montana Memory Project, and Mountain West Digital Library.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Homestead Acts. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Homestead Strike. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Hudson River School. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Ida B. Wells and anti-lynching activism. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

December 2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of Prohibition, the period between 1920 – 1933 when the manufacture, transport and sale of intoxicating liquors was illegal in the United States. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, was the crowning achievement of a temperance movement that had been building in this country since the late 1700s. Alcohol consumption had peaked to a high of about 7 gallons per person in the early 1800s (compared to less than 3 gallons today), with recognized health and societal consequences. But the new laws were difficult to enforce, due to general unpopularity and the profits that could be made through circumventing the law. Demand for alcohol remained high, and organized crime and corruption flourished. Loopholes and exemptions also allowed home wine production, and prescriptions for medical alcohol rose dramatically. Enforcement difficulties, popular resistance, and economic pressures associated with the Great Depression all contributed to efforts to repeal Prohibition. In 1933, the 21st Amendment ended national prohibition and returned responsibility for alcohol regulation to the states. The Kentucky Digital Library and DPLA would like to thank the contributing institutions for providing the unique content and metadata featured in Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States. Texts, research, and compilation by University of Kentucky Libraries employees Sarah Dorpinghaus, Beth Kraemer, Kathryn Lybarger, Mary Molinaro, Judy Sackett, and Stacy Yelton. Repository and curation support provided by Tom Blake, Kate Boyd, Crystal Heis, Shelia McAlister, Sandra McIntyre, Danielle Pucci, Jason Roy, and Christopher Vinson.

This collection uses primary sources to explore the invention of the telephone. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Invisible Man follows its unnamed narrator as he journeys from the rural South to bustling Harlem, experiencing the barriers created by the color line in twentieth-century American life. The novel borrows heavily from jazz and blues forms as its narrator encounters fictionalized versions of major African American leaders like Booker T. Washington and Marcus Garvey. Alternately comic and tragic, the novel explores the psychological effects of racism across U.S. social institutions, geographies, and social classes.

(Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop critical thinking skills by exploring topics in history, literature, and culture through primary sources. Drawing online materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, the sets use letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more. Each set includes a topic overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.)

This collection uses primary sources to explore Jacksonian democracy. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.