History Websites Research History Historical Research,Current Events, World History, Maps, Archival Preservation Methods, American Indian History American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library Library of Congress, American Memory. This expansive archive of American history and culture features photographs, prints, motion pictures, manuscripts, printed books, pamphlets, maps, and sound recordings going back to roughly 1490. Currently this site includes more than 9 million digital items from more than 100 collections on subjects ranging from African-American political pamphlets to California folk music, from baseball to the Civil War. Most topical sites include special presentations introducing particular depositories or providing historical context for archival materials. Visitors can search collections separately or…

An article from Biography.com Truman Capote Biography orig. Truman Streckfus Persons ( 1924 – 1984 ) RELATED WORKS Novels 1948 Other Voices, Other Rooms 1951 The Grass Harp 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany’s Writer. Born Truman Streckfus Persons on September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of the twentieth century’s most well-known writers, Truman Capote was as fascinating a character as those who appeared in his stories. His parents were an odd pair — a small-town girl named Lillie Mae and a charming schemer called Arch — and they largely neglected their son, often leaving him in the care of others. Capote spent much of his young life in the…

original name Marguerite Johnson ( 1928 – )   RELATED WORKS AUTOBIOGRAPHIES 2008 Letter to My Daughter 2004 – Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes 2002 – A Song Flung Up to Heaven 1986 – All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes 1981 – Heart of a Woman 1976 – Singin’ and Swingin and Getting Merry Like Christmas 1974 – I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 1970 – Gather Together in My Name PERSONAL ESSAYS 1997 – Even the Stars Look Lonesome 1993 – Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now Writer, dancer, African-American activist. Born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri.…

An article from Biography.com Dorothy Parker Biography née Dorothy Rothschild ( 1893 – 1967 ) RELATED WORKS Poetry 1926 Enough Rope 1928 Sunset Gun 1931 Death and Taxes Journalist, writer, and poet. Born Dorothy Rothschild on August 22, 1893, in West End, New Jersey. Dorothy Parker was a legendary literary figure, known for her biting wit. She worked on such magazines as Vogue and Vanity Fair during the late 1910s. Parker went on to work as a book reviewer for The New Yorker in the 1920s. A selection of her reviews for this magazine was published in 1970 as Constant Reader, the title of her column. She remained a contributor to The New Yorker for…

An article from Biography.com Edward Albee Biography in full Edward Franklin Albee ( 1928 – ) RELATED WORKS Plays 1958 The Zoo Story 1959 The Death of Bessie Smith 1959 The Sandbox (born March 12, 1928, Washington, D.C., U.S.) American dramatist and theatrical producer best known for his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), which displays slashing insight and witty dialogue in its gruesome portrayal of married life. Albee was the adopted child of a father who had for a time been the assistant general manager of a chain of vaudeville theatres then partially owned by the Albee family. At the time of Albee’s adoption, though, both his parents were…

Civil War Background In the mid-19th century, while the United States was experiencing an era of tremendous growth, a fundamental economic difference existed between the country’s northern and southern regions. While in the North, manufacturing and industry was well established, and agriculture was mostly limited to small-scale farms, the South’s economy was based on a system of large-scale farming that depended on the labor of black slaves to grow certain crops, especially cotton and tobacco. Growing abolitionist sentiment in the North after the 1830s and northern opposition to slavery’s extension into the new western territories led many southerners to fear that the existence of slavery in america–and thus the backbone of their economy–was…

Here are eight other former Harvard students who made out just fine without earning their degrees. 1. Robert Frost Frost, a San Francisco native who had previously dropped out of Dartmouth after only two months, was accepted for admission at Harvard in the fall of 1897 and studied liberal arts in Cambridge. Two years later, Frost, who had married and become a father just prior to enrolling at Harvard, left school to support his growing family. “They could not make a student of me here, but they gave it their best,” Frost later said. Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for poetry in his lifetime and received an honorary degree from…

      Biography © 2011 A&E Television Networks. All rights reserved. Singer, jazz vocalist. Born Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Some sources say Baltimore, Maryland. Her birth certificate reportedly reads “Elinore Harris.”) One of the most influential jazz singers of all time, Billie Holiday had a thriving career for many years before her battles with substance abuse got the better of her. Striking out on her own, Holiday performed at New York’s Café Society. She developed some of her trademark stage persona there—wearing gardenias in her hair and singing with her head tilted back. During this engagement, Holiday also debuted two of her most famous…