Maryland State Library Resource Center

Enoch Pratt Free Library

(1860-1877) Civil War & Reconstruction - Maryland State Library Resource Center

(1860-1877) Civil War & Reconstruction

Websites

American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
"What makes the WPA narratives so rich is that they capture the very voices of American slavery, revealing the texture of life as it was experienced and remembered." - Intro. ASN is easy-to-use and covers a broad sampling of the transcripts. One of the ex-slaves, Fountain Hughes, was interviewed in Baltimore at age 101. The site was developed at the University of Virginia and includes photographs, suggested readings, and excellent links.
America's Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War
Overview of Reconstruction. See the "additional resources" link for further material. 
Bleeding Kansas Gallery
A unique and fascinating collection of books, letters, memoirs, and other materials describing the bitter and violent conflict over slavery in Kansas during the 1854-1859 border wars.
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives
"Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA)." - Intro. The site is part of the Library of Congress American Memory project.
Crisis At Fort Sumter
"Crisis at Fort Sumter is an interactive historical simulation and decision making program. Using text, images, and sound, it reconstructs the dilemmas of policy formation and decision making in the period between Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 and the battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 . . . . The program begins with the period following Lincoln's election, during which time the problem of secession and southern independence were tackled in ways that influenced the later predicament at Sumter." - Intro. This unique and intriguing site is hosted by Tulane University.
Mr. Lincoln's White House
"President Abraham Lincoln himself once called it 'this damned house,' and when he was besieged by office seekers and afflicted by bad news from the war front, the White House must have seemed truly damned." - Intro. In time, however, the Lincolns grew to appreciate their new quarters. The Lincoln Institute sponsors this fascinating insider's view of the executive mansion during the tumultuous war years.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion
Cornell University hosts the online edition of one of the largest and most important compilations of naval materials dealing with the War. The site is searchable and browsable.
Southern Homefront
"'The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865,' documents Southern life during the Civil War, especially the unsuccessful attempt to create a viable nation state as evidenced in both private and public life. 'Homefront' includes over four hundred digitized and encoded contemporary printed works and manuscripts, accompanied by ca. 1,000 images of currency, manuscript letters, maps, broadsides, title pages, illustrations, and photographs." Homefront is part of the University of North Carolina's respected Documenting the American South Collections.
The U.S West after the Civil War
Primary source image collections organized by theme, exploring different aspects of the U.S. West in the final years of the Nineteenth Century. Includes collections on the Transcontinental Railroad, Native Americans and Cultural Contact, and Everyday Live and People. 
War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
Cornell University hosts the online edition of one of the largest and most significant compilations of resources dealing with the War. The site is searchable and browsable.

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