“Westbrook Seminary: Educating Women” is an interesting digital exhibit available through Maine Memory Network, which is managed by the Maine Historical Society. One can read a student’s diary (1843-1844) as well as learn more about several students who attended Westbrook Seminary throughout the 19th century.  Check out all of the digital exhibits on Maine Memory Network here (including “Debates Over Suffrage,” “Hannibal Hamlin of Paris Hill,” and “Irish Immigrants in Nineteenth Century Maine” )

The University of Iowa’s Digital Library contains a number of different digital projects, including “Iowa Counties Historic Atlases.” One can find almost 100 county atlases published between the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Each county atlas, such as one for Des Moines county, offers different county maps, city maps, a wide variety of illustrations, and historical sketches.

“N. A. Chandler California Gold Rush Era Letters” is a great digital project available from Claremont College. Newton Chandler (1818?-1880), who arrived in San Francisco in 1855, wrote over fifty letters to his wife between 1855 and 1872. These letters provide interesting insights into the Gold Rush, including Chandler’s journey to California in 1855. While he “had a first rate passage…[and] enjoyed it well,” Chandler explained that conditions for “deck passengers was very bad.”

The University of Iowa has a small but interesting digital collection of diaries from children who lived in Iowa from 1860 to the 1900s. Of the eleven diaries that are available, three were written between 1860 and 1870. Even though they are relatively short (only a few pages have been digitized in some cases), the diaries can still provide interesting insights into the children’s experiences. One entry suggests that at least some children were paying attention to the important political issues of their day – Ellery Hancock, who was only about ten years old in 1860, noted on November 6 that Abraham Lincoln had been “elected.” One can learn more about the author through the short biographical sketch on the “document description” page in each diary.

Duke University’s “The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 – 1920” is a great resource for learning more about the early advertising history in the United States. This collection, which has over 9,000 images, is organized into eleven categories – almost all of the advertisements produced before 1870 are in “Broadsides” and “Advertising Ephemera.” Yet there is still a wide variety of material from the Civil War era, as one can find broadsides for political parties (Democrat, Republican) to advertisements for hotels. If you want to find more broadsides from the Civil War, check out the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s collection, which I discussed in a previous post.

Rice University has created a great online supplement for their 12 volume Papers of Jefferson Davis project. While not all of the papers have been posted online, the site offers a nice selection of material from his entire career. One can read “a listing of the demerits Davis received while” at West Point, a newspaper article that described his speech in May 1849 on the increase in sectional tensions, a speech in July 1860 in support of John Breckinridge’s campaign, a letter to his wife in April 1865, and many other interesting documents. The project plans to add even more material in the future. One should also check out the other resources on the site, including a detailed timeline of Davis’ life and pictures of him and other family members.

While I highlighted House Divided’s map collection a few weeks ago, another great resource is the American Geographical Society Library Digital Map Collection. One can look through over 500 maps from around the world as well as from different eras (15th – 21st century). This collection has lots of interesting maps to check out, such as world maps from 1818,  1850s, and 1890s, as well as city maps of major US cities like Chicago, New Orleans, and New York (1840 and 1871). The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries hosts this collection and a number of other digital projects as well.

“John Bull & Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations” is an interesting exhibit of selected items from the British Library in London and the Library of Congress in Washington DC. The site is organized around several themes, such as “Exploration and Settlement,” “Common Language, Separate Voices,” “From Abolition to Equal Rights,” and “Popular Culture: from Baseball to Rock and Roll.” The material related to the Civil War is spread out among these groups. Some particularly interesting items in this exhibit are a satire on the California Gold Rush (A Goodnatured Hint about California (London, 1849)), a political cartoon on Confederate diplomats’ failure to win recognition as an independent country from the United Kingdom, and a letter from Queen Victoria to Mary Lincoln after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.

Utah Digital Newspapers, which is available from the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, is another great collection of digital newspapers. The project has over thirty newspapers between 1850 and the 1970s. There are three papers from the Civil War Era, all of which were published in Salt Lake County – Desert News (1850-1910), Union Vedette (1863-1867), and the Valley Tan (1858-1860). The complete list of digital newspapers is available here.

While I have noted other digital historic newspaper projects in previous posts, another great collection is available through Missouri Digital Heritage. The site has three newspapers from the Civil War era – Border Star Newspaper (1858-1860), Liberty Tribune (1846-1848, 1852-1867, 1869-1878, 1880, 1882, and 1883), and the St. Louis Christian Advocate (1857 – 1879). The site is easy to navigate and all of the newspapers are available for download as PDF files. Also be sure to check out all of the other digital collections available through Missouri Digital Heritage.