WHAT'S NEW?

SITE OF THE WEEK

It just gets better and better. More of American history is finding its way online and a lot of that info is coming from the Library of Congress. What might have taken weeks to research can now be found in seconds -- with more being added.

VISIT the Library of Congress web site

At the risk of sounding like an old-timer, Memorial Day used to mean something when I was a kid. My parents packed three crew-cut boys into the Ford station wagon and visited the Tombs of the Unknown Relatives. They were unknown to us boys anyway, so we spent our time running through the cemetery in our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. We read a lot of epitaphs on those holidays, running our fingers through the granite letters as if they were Braille messages from the past.

But it’s hard to remember the past when you’re not yet 10 and history stretches backwards like an endless blur. The past, as far as we could see, was all about inactivity. Tombstones didn’t move. Dead people didn’t move. Old pictures in books stood frozen like bugs in prehistoric amber. Old people seemed to grow increasingly immobile as they shuffled off this mortal coil. Our youthful energy seemed an affront to the memory of the past as we ran shouting among the stones. "Hush!" people said. "Have some respect. You’ll wake the dead."

Nearly half a century later, waking the dead is my vocation. The past, despite what the droning history texts imply, is anything but brittle. We have to look beyond the yellowing paper and the grainy monochrome photos. It was, back then, as colorful and lively as life today. You just have to use your imagination.

Those seeking the past online should bookmark American Memory. It is an enormous and growing archive of historical, photographs, documents, sound and video clips. I’m continually amazed to find rare images and ephemera popping up online, stuff that, until recently, would have been all but impossible to locate and retrieve from dusty archives.

THE WEB SITE MAKERS

You paid for this site, or part of it, through your taxes. American Memory is just one chunk of the Library of Congress web site. You can get to the home page with this easy URL -- www.loc.gov – then click on the flag to find American Memory. (Or just go to Google.com and type in "American Memory").

But beware. If you click on one of the other icons, you could be distracted for hours, even days. Thomas, for example, is the government’s legislative search engine. It’s named for Thomas Jefferson who got the whole thing started when he sold his prized library at Monticello to the federal government. Another section of the site includes oral histories by veterans. There is a women’s history section worth a look. Another provides elaborate online versions of exhibits currently on display in Washington.

You can electronically search the Library of Congress card catalog, which has just about every book ever published. The kids section – America’s Library – is especially good. The "Amazing Americans" featured there offers highly readable profiles of people like Harry Houdini, Harriet Tubman, Frank Loyd Wright, Langston Hughes and others.

But you see, we’re getting distracted already! And that’s really the problem here. Like the massive Library of Congress itself, a surfer can get lost in here. You might turn down a side alley and never be seen again.

American Memory is a rich archive of primary sources in a gigantic central web site. Right now it contains more than 7 million items spread through 100 separate collections. The Prints and Photographs Division (P&P) holds over thirteen million images, including photographs (published and unpublished), cartoons, posters, documentary and architectural drawings, and ephemera, such as baseball cards.

THE UP SHOT

When searching for local history online I go through a quick diagnostic that suits my interests. Search American Memory for "John Paul Jones", for example, and it delivers 349 related documents and images, mostly letters. A key advantage here is that the data files are huge. Items appear in thumbnail form, then can be expanded to a larger JPG version, and usually to a massive TIFF file that is ideal for printing or close analysis. Imagine having access to millions of these files. No need to fly to Washington DC, or spend hours at the library, or even to pay fees for use of the images. This is our American heritage – and it’s accessible and free.

I know that doesn’t sound like the federal government, but American Memory works. A search on the "Isles of Shoals" turned up photos I’d never seen. Under "Tobias Lear", George Washington’s secretary who hailed from Portsmouth, are scores of documents – including Washington’s inaugural address in Lear’s handwriting.

In just a few minutes I was able to access a hoarde of unrelated items that would have taken days to find before the Internet. A petition to the House of Representatives from 1870, for example, is signed by 73 citizens of Dover "praying for the improvement of the Cocheco River". An 1803 "Bill of Mortality" shows exactly how many men and women in Portsmouth died, their age, month of demise. Causes of death included dropsy, consumption, billious collic, bleeding from the lungs, apoplexy, lock jaw, phrenzy and old age. Another click and I was watching the delegates to the 1905 Russo-Japanese Treaty marching through the city streets in a very early newsreel. Another click and there were early provincial New Hampshire documents from the 1600s right on screen.

All files can be downloaded, and some are huge. Pictures in the American Memory collection are scanned at 5,000 pixels on the longest side. That means compressed TIFF images can be as large as 50 megabytes. Multiply that by a few million and you get an idea how much server space is needed to keep this collection online and available. The cost is being paid from both government and private sources, which makes American Memory especially interesting. Mr. John W. Kluge and the David and Lucille Packard Foundation each kicked in $5 million. The web site lists another 20 US corporations and groups that anted up a million dollars each. Thanks dudes.

Like any government system, American Memory takes a little getting used to. The search engine and its online pages have a sterile design that may be daunting at first. But it’s a powerful tool once you get the hang of it. Searchers can look only for photos, maps, sound or movie clips. Documents are divided into manuscripts, printed texts and sheet music.

The real fun comes in being able to dig into all 100 Library of Congress collections at one time. Such massive sweeping searches may lead scholars – or anybody – to discover comparisons never seen before.

It’s a whole new way to see deep into the heart of America. And from the comfort of your home, feel free to wail and shout and wake the dead. Without a knowledge of the past, we’re just running in circles.