Now Available: American History in Video

History buffs, scholars, students or anyone interested in American history and life now have available over 1200 videos available covering the 16th century to the 20th century. This new collection, added to the Axe databases in March, will grow to 5000 titles in a few years.

American History in Video includes public affairs videos from CBS’ Longlines Chronoscope, documentaries from A&E Television network’s History Channel and Biography and movie theatre newsreels from the 40s to the 60s covering war, politics, fashion, sports and more. Contents can be browsed by historical event, titles, newsreels, historical era, places, and more or searched by keyword.

Alexander Street Press has added value to the American History in Video collection with a variety of searching capabilities. In addition to multiple ways to browse, features include an advanced search, ability to view thumbnail images, do transcript searching, and create embeddable links, user-created playlists and clips. All tracks, clips, playlists, videos, web pages, etc. have permanent URLs to allow for emailing, bookmarking, hyperlinks in web pages, and more.

The added value makes American History in Video equally useful for research, classroom lectures, and multi-media presentations. For a list of currently available titles, go to: http://ahiv.alexanderstreet.com/Browse/Video .

Take a look at “Forces of Darkness” (part of the series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy) http://ahiv.alexanderstreet.com/View/520769 .

Or, a video on Charles Lindbergh’s life http://ahivfree.alexanderstreet.com/View/519297 .

Locate the American History in Video collection from the Library homepage (http://library.pittstate.edu/) by clicking on “Databases by Title”.

If you would like more information, of if you have questions about this, or any one of our online databases, please call the Axe Reference Desk at ext. 4894.

Making of America Journals

Axe Library is now providing access to the Making of America journal collection, a collaborative open access effort between Cornell University and University of Michigan. The Cornell University's Making of America website notes that the collection is a "digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction."

The Making of America journal collection contains digitized pages of the journals and allows searching and viewing of the texts online. The collection is rich in education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, science, and technology and contains over 100,000 articles from the mid 19th to the early 20th century.

The portion of the Making of America journal collection at Cornell University contains the full text of the following journals:

The American Missionary (1878-1901)
The American Whig Review (1845-1852)
The Atlantic Monthly (1857-1886)
The Bay State Monthly (1884-1886)
The Century (1881-1899)
The Continental Monthly (1862-1864)
The Galaxy (1866-1878)
Harper's New Monthly Magazine (1850-1899)
The International Monthly Magazine (1850-1852)
The Living Age (1844-1900)
Manufacturer and Builder (1869-1894)
The New England Magazine (1886-1900)
The New-England Magazine (1831-1835)
New Englander (1843-1892)
The North American Review (1815-1900)
The Old Guard (1863-1867)
Punchinello (1870)
Putnam's Monthly (1853-1870)
Scientific American (1846-1869)
Scribner's Magazine (1887-1896)
Scribner's Monthly (1870-1881)
The United States Democratic Review (1837-1859)

The portion of the collection available at University of Michigan contains the full text of the following journals:

American Jewess (1895-1899)
Appletons' Journal (1872-1881)
Appletons' Journal of Literature, Science and Art (1869-1872)
Biblical Repertory (Philadelphia, Pa.) (1833-1834)
Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review (1838-1871)
Biblical Repertory and Theological Review (1830-1832)
Biblical Repertory and Theological Review (1835-1837)
Catholic World (1865-1901)
De Bow's Commercial Review of the South & West (1846-1850)
DeBow's Review (1853-1869)
DeBow's Review of the Southern and Western States (1850-1852)
Garden and Forest (1888-1897)
Journal of the United States Association of Iron Workers (1880-1891)
Ladies' Repository (Cincinnatti, Oh.) (1841-1876)
Old Guard (New York, N.Y.) (1863-1867)
Overland Monthly (1868-1900)
Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review (1872-1877)
Princeton Review (1878-1882)
Southern and Western Literary Messenger (1846-1847)
Southern Literary Messenger (1834-1835)
Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond, Va.) (1848-1864)
Southern Quarterly Review (1842-1857)
Vanity Fair (1860-1862)

According to the website at Cornell University, plans are underway to integrate the two parts of the collection in order to provide access to over 1.5 million page images from a single point.

The Cornell University's website for the collection emphasizes that the project ". . . represents a major collaborative endeavor to preserve and make accessible through digital technology a significant body of primary sources related to development of the U.S. infrastructure." It will also be a significant important addition to Axe Library's collections in art, history, social sciences, technology, and religion.

To access the Making of America Journals Collection, go to the Library's website at http://library.pittstate.edu/ and click on "Serials Solutions." Type in the journal name and a link to the online content will be displayed. In addition, you may link to the online content if you are in another database and click on "Article Linker" or "360 Link."

Please call ext. 4884 or 4894 if you have questions or comments about the Making of America Journals Collection.

Display Cases, May – Jamestown

Most of us learned about Jamestown in school. We learned the mythological story of Captain John Smith and the teenaged Native American princess Pocahontas who supposedly threw herself over John’s body to keep her father from killing him. We also learned that the colony, despite being planted in an area abundant with plant and animal life, was a death trap for the unfortunate colonists who moved there. Forty of one hundred and forty four died on a five month sea crossing after which famine, disease and fights with the Indians (and each other) killed more than half of the rest. The colony, after many difficulties, enjoyed some success in planting tobacco before it was gradually abandoned and the capital was moved to Williamsburg. In recent years, thanks to the hard work of archaeologist Dr. William Kelso and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities the actual fort that the colonists built after their first landing has been found, partly excavated and reconstructed. Many things which were not known about the colonists were found out in the course of the excavations. The excavations of the Fort have taken place only since 1994 because before that, the site was believed to have been washed away by the James River. But Dr. Kelso reread the histories and diaries left by the original colonists and found the fort between the church and the river.

Dr. William Kelso, Archaeologist
and Jamestown’s Newest Founder.

In honor of the 400th anniversary of the first landing at Jamestown (May 14th, 1607) the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation and the National Parks Service is holding a celebration known as “America’s 400th Anniversary” from May 11-May 13. (The site has already hosted Vice President Cheney, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip on May 4th, and will host the President during the Anniversary festivities.) And Axe Library, not wanting to be left out, has put up a display case in honor of the troubled but tenacious colony.

We had the good fortune to have one of our staff members, Mr. Robert Lindsey, our Library Resource Instruction librarian, come back from a trip to Jamestown at the beginning of May. He lent us postcards, fold out brochures and a CD loaded with photos of the archaeological sites, museums and art. He made a great shot of the replicas of the expedition’s three boats, the “Susan Constant”, the “Godspeed” and the “Discovery” and in one of the photos his son Erik, with the help of some watchful re-enactors dressed in period costume, parries a pike, the standard weapon of the British colonists. Among the many publications about Jamestown which are in the case are the latest issue of National Geographic, whose cover story this month is “Jamestown: The Real Story”. Among the many fascinating facts it teaches us are how Jamestown colony with its new cash crops (tobacco) and its domestic animals such as pigs, cattle and goats, reformed the entire landscape of the east coast of Virginia. We also learn that among the diseases which the white man brought to America was malaria, endemic to the swamps of southeastern England (England!?) and which the colonists brought with them in the form of plasmodia in their blood. (If you ever read a novel by Dickens or some other 19th century English novelist, you may have run across the disease known as “ague” characterized by shaking, fever and chills. That’s malaria.)

Photo of present day excavations by
Axe Staff Member, Mr. Robert Lindsey.

We also have numerous books, such as biographies of Captain John Smith, accounts of the history of Jamestown, some written before, some after, the discovery of the fort, and articles from the New York Times, the Washington Post and American History. Websites are also available, such as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, and the Historic Jamestowne site where they have pictures of numerous artifacts being dug from old cellars, wells and trash heaps close to the fort and many, many more things of interest. Oh, and if you would like to borrow something from the display case, just ask. We will be glad to make our resources available to you.

Heavily corroded rapier hilt,
and hammer from the APVA website.