Maintained by Professor Ann Woodlief at Virginia Commonwealth University, this site was created to serve as a gathering place for information and primary documents about the transcendentalist movement in American literature and philosophy during the 19th century. Along with profiles of some of the main persons associated with the movement, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller, the...

This extraordinary Website is devoted to the Dime Novel and Story Paper Collection at Stanford University Library. The site offers thousands of cataloged graphic images of illustrated covers to issues of the dime novels and story papers that were immensely popular in America from the mid-nineteenth century to its close. The images may be searched or browsed; search options include an exhaustive...

Unsure if one might don a colorful shirt or black pants with their black frock coat? (One should most certainly not.) Unclear on the finer points of calling card usage? Look no further than this fun and informative site. Designed and written by Walter Nelson and maintained by the Lively Arts History Association, the Gentleman's Page offers a glimpse into the ideals of dress and behavior for...

George Catlin is considered one of the foremost chroniclers of the Native American experience in the early 19th century, and his dramatic and honest paintings form the main part of this virtual exhibit produced by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the 1830s and 1840s, Catlin journeyed throughout the American West documenting the transformation of different Native American groups,...

Researching and documenting local histories can be difficult work, as any genealogist or amateur historian can attest to. Barbara Stewart and her colleagues at the University of Massachusetts have created a valuable Web-based resource for people interested in researching Franklin County in Massachusetts. Essentially, the Archive Index allows users to search for articles (organized by subject) from...

This 1881 reference book was designed to help nineteenth-century households stay healthy and productive. Need to know how to winter your bees? Build a barometer? Bleed a patient with leeches? Your answers are here. The site, a part-time project of freelance webmaster Matthew Spong, evokes a time when many households were largely self-sufficient, and the value of a book explaining how to amputate a...

Produced by the American Social History Project's Center for Media and Learning at the City University of New York (in collaboration with George Mason University), the Lost Museum brings a recreation of P.T. Barnum's famed American Museum to the Web. Opened by Barnum in 1841, the former American Museum remained a prime tourist attraction until its spectacular conflagration in 1865. As the site...

While the mention of Mark Twain may make one think of drifting along the Mississippi, the noted American author and curmudgeon wrote most of his famous works while living in this home in Hartford, Connecticut. Visitors to the site can take a virtual tour of the house, which is also notable for having one of the few remaining Tiffany-designed interiors. The site also has several activities for...

Edgar Allen Poe was only on this earth for an all-too brief forty years, but he crafted some fine poetry. Some have argued that with the "Murders in the Rue Morgue," he created the first detective story. On this site, visitors will see complete text versions of almost all of Mr. Poe's poems and short stories. Each piece begins by indicating the year of its first publication and the publication in...

WALDEN is a mailing list dedicated to Henry David Thoreau. It is named after his best known work, Walden, a recounting of a period of time he spent living "deliberately" next to Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts. The list will discuss: the relevance of Thoreau's ideas to life in the 21st century; books about Thoreau's life and works; other authors that were Thoreau's 19th century...