The Internet is an ideal medium for distributing old or obscure material that would be hard to get otherwise. Here are some great resources in the history of law and the humanities.
Making of America: MOA www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp
Here you will find a digital library of primary sources in American social history from before the Civil War through recon- struction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. My personal favorite? Leaves from an Actor’s Note-Book, Reminiscences and Chit-Chat of the Green Room and the Stage by actor George Vandenhoff, published in 1860.
Reading it is like listening to 150-year-old gossip.
Figure 6.3 Visit MOA to get the green room gossip of 1860.
Human Rights Library: University of Minnesota www1.umn.edu/humanrts
Even if the guys who originally signed these things don’t remem- ber what’s in them, wecan find out by searching this collection of the most important international human rights treaties ever agreed to. Get them in French, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic, too.
Avalon Project at the Yale Law School www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
Go straight to the source with this collection of international documents “relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy, and Government.” The documents are grouped by century. See also Project DIANA: An Online Human Rights Archive at this same location for the text of treaties old and new concerning the preservation of human rights.
EuroDocs
http://library.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs
The premier directory of links to Western European historical documents comes straight out of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. That’s where the Harold B. Lee Library European stud- ies bibliographer Richard Hacken created and maintains this world-class resource. Get your links to the history of Monaco and even Vatican City here—but don’t expect to find all the results in English.
Internet History Sourcebooks Project (IHSP) www.fordham.edu/halsall
Paul Halsall, now assistant professor of history at the University of North Florida, developed and edits this collection of public domain historical texts at Fordham University in New York, where he earned his PhD. The IHSP is divided into three main categories:
ancient, medieval, and modern history. Additional theme areas include African, East Asian, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, women’s, gay/lesbian, and global history, as well as the history of science.
U.S. Historical Documents www.law.ou.edu/hist
The University of Oklahoma College of Law houses this site, cre- ated by Eric A. Cooper and maintained by James P. Callison. Come here for quick copies of the Monroe Doctrine, the Iroquois Constitution, and the Japanese surrender documents of World War II.
World War II Primary Source Document Collection www.ibiblio.org/pha
Larry W. Jewell and his Pearl Harbor Working Group want to
“keep the record straight” about World War II by offering the full text of documents leading up to and produced during the conflicts.
Jewell especially emphasizes the attack on Pearl Harbor. He offers a special archive containing more than 5,000 items about that event.
Liberty Library of Constitutional Classics www.constitution.org/liberlib.htm
Jon Roland sees violations of the U.S. Constitution everywhere.
Because of this belief, he has mounted this full-text collection of classic books and other works on constitutional government for all to read. Take advantage of Roland’s paranoia and peruse the Code of Hammurabi, the works of ancient Greek authors, and the Magna Cartain several formats. Access also the seminal works of the U.S.
government, in HTML, plain text, or image files.
Religion-Online
www.religion-online.org
Religious scholar William F. Fore established this site to make major works of religions available to his divinity students at the United Theological College in Bangalore, India. Browse this exten- sive collection through a subject directory that covers the major issues faced by religion today. Explore writings about the Bible, of course, but also modern ethics, social issues, and practical theol- ogy (read: mental health counseling). Fore presents the full texts of writings “presenting many different points of view, but all written from the perspective of sound scholarship.”
Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org
Harry Plantinga, professor of computer science at Calvin College, provides full-text access to the “most important public domain Christian books for theological study and ministry.” Some of the works are available in other languages, especially Russian.
Search the database by author, title, or type of work. And don’t miss Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God(1741) in Traditional Chinese font.
Classics in the History of Psychology http://psychclassics.yorku.ca
Christopher D. Green, a professor in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada, developed this full-text collection of “historically significant public domain docu- ments from the scholarly literature of psychology and allied disci- plines.” It currently contains over 25 books and more than 150 articles and chapters online. The site also links to nearly 200 rele- vant works posted at other sites. Browse the collection by author or topic, or perform a Boolean search.