The Americas have been inhabited for the past 40,000 years, but for most Americans the history of the United States begins about 500 years ago, with Christopher Columbus. In fact, every American kindergartener knows the rhyme:
In 14 hundred and ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
So what better place to start a survey of American history on the Web than a site called 1492: An Ongoing Voyage (sunsite.unc.edu/expo/1492 .exhibit/Intro.html)?
Visitors to the site will be able to learn not only about Columbus' journey to the Americas, but also about the profound impact that voyage had on the subsequent development of the Old and New Worlds.
Although Europeans first visited the Americas in the late 1400s, the English didn't start to colonise North America until over a hundred years later. Two of the most important early British settlements - Jamestown (1607) and Plymouth (1620) - are the subject of Web sites. I was surprised to read on the Jamestown site that, despite the settlement's prominent place in American history, its precise location had long ago been forgotten. That omission has been rectified, however, by an archaeological project which has recently uncovered building foundations and garbage pits used by the early settlers. To see views of these wonders - and learn more about the settlement's history - go to www.apva.org. Plymouth, the first British colony in what was later to be called New England, was settled by a group of Puritans called the Pilgrims. The legendary feast held by the Pilgrims to "give thanks" to God for their safe arrival in America is the source of America's best-known holiday - Thanksgiving. You can take a virtual tour of the Plymouth colony by directing your browser to www.media3.net /plymouth/vtour/. The site offers visitors an intimate look at the way these colonists and their Native American neighbours clothed, housed and fed themselves.
America's 18th century is the subject of a number of interesting and information-filled sites. One of the best is Archiving Early America (earlyamerica.com/). Here you will find original newspapers, maps, images and writings covering colonial society and the Revolutionary War (1774-81), as well as information about key figures in early American history, such as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
In my opinion, Franklin was probably the most interesting and important figure of the period, although his fame isn't nearly as great as his peers who went on to become presidents. An able politician, a noted scientist and inventor and a famous ladies' man, Franklin was, above all else, a great writer. His autobiography - which you can read online through the site - is as fresh and insightful today as it was when he wrote it two hundred years ago. After the Revolution, the single most significant event in the development of the United States was the Civil War (186165) which immortalised Abraham Lincoln. The continuing fascination this era holds for many Americans is demonstrated by the plethora of Civil War sites maintained by war buffs, amateur historians and academics. The most impressive of these is The Valley of the Shadow (jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2/), the creation of Edward L. Ayers, a leading historian of the American South. The site focuses on two communities, one Northern and one Southern, and provides a hypermedia archive of thousands of sources for the period, including newspapers, letters, diaries, photographs, maps, censuses, and church and military records. The site is especially designed for second-level and university students. Taking the site's `walking tour' of the two communities has enabled many of the students to experience the war from the perspective of an ordinary citizen or a soldier of the era.
The history of the American West is covered by a number of excellent sites, such as New Perspectives on the West (www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/), which contains documents, images, an interactive timeline, maps and a biographical dictionary. Other notable Western history sites focus on mountain men and the fur trade (www.xmission.com/ drudy /amm.html), Mormon history (www.indirect.com/www /crockett/history.html) and, of course, the legendary Oregon Trail (www.isu.edu/ trinmich /Oregontrail.html). If you are interested in what happened in the Americas during the 40,000 years before Columbus, you can visit any of the sites devoted to Native American history. One of the most useful of these is Native American Indian Resources (indy4.fdl.cc.mn.us/isk/) with its poignant banner that the pages are no longer maintained because the author (a Native American woman) has passed away.
Although more Americans claim Irish heritage than any other, there are relatively few sites reflecting the Irish-American experience. Two that do are the Ulster American Folk Park site (www.folkpark.com), which details the experience of immigration from Ulster to America in the 18th and 19th centuries, and The Five Points Site (r2.gsa.gov/fivept/fphome.htm), which presents a virtual tour of the famous early 19th-century New York City neighbourhood which was home to the city's poorest residents, including many immigrants from Ireland. In terms of depth and insight, however, the Web site maintained by the Museum of the City of New York offers the greatest reward to students of the Irish-American connection. Among their many online exhibits is `Gaelic Gotham: A History of the Irish in New York', a lengthy image and text discourse on a key chapter in the story of Irish life in America (www.mcny.org/irish.htm).
There you have it - more than a dozen excellent Web sites covering all aspects of American history. If you just don't know where to start, though, the site for you is American Memory (lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/). Maintained by the Library of Congress, American Memory offers a mind-boggling range of information and images on the entire spectrum of the American experience, ranging from the lives and times of the US presidents to African-American life in the 19th-century Midwest and from American ballroom dancing in the colonial period to the history of baseball cards. Like the legendary halls of the Library itself, the Web site's corridors are broad and its nooks and crannies are filled with delights. If visiting pack a lunch, you may be gone for a long time.
Ed Hatton is at: ed-hatton@hotmail.com