The late Harrison Forman was a well-known photojournalist, world traveler, and fellow of the American Geographical Society. During his long career, he focused on places such as the South Pacific, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. He was known as a "modern Marco Polo" and his primary interest was in people and their daily lives. Years after he passed away, his photo collection of about...

Before the days of the Internet, television, and the wireless radio, there was the Chautauqua. These massive meetings promised "uplift and education", and their heyday in the United States was from the late nineteenth century to the end of World War I. They went from state to state, and during a gathering, interested and curious patrons might see a play, listen to a Metropolitan Opera star, check...

Tropy is a photo library management tool designed with researchers in mind. It provides features for group photos in documents (e.g., for scanned images of multi-page works), to annotate or transcribe photos, add custom tags to photos, and more. Users can then use annotations, tags, and transcriptions to search their photo library and quickly find items of interest. In addition, Tropy can export...

William Vaughn Tupper was quite the traveler, wandering around Europe, Great Britain, and North Africa from 1891-1894 with his family. This remarkable digital collection from the Boston Public Library contains 46 scrapbooks that document his fascinating journeys. First-time visitors might do well to check out "Volume 31: On the Nile. Cairo to Luxor" as a good starting point. Here they will find...

From the Cape Cod National Seashore to the Muir Woods in California, this excellent site covers the full range of the National Park Service (NPS) holdings. This recently redesigned section of the NPS site includes webcams, photo galleries, multimedia presentations, and virtual tours. In the "Multimedia Presentations" area, visitors can take in interactive activities from the Brown v. Board of...

This marvelous digital collection draws on materials held in the collection of Southern Methodist University's DeGolyer Library. The Library holds over 500,000 images that document the American West, borderlands, exploration, and the development of the Western railroads. This particular collection brings together over 540 digitized items, including Alexander Gardner's 1867 portfolio, "Across the...

Born in 1920, cellist James Arkatov performed with the San Francisco Symphony and other organizations before helping form the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. As the son of a photographer, he also became quite well known for his shots of various artists, conductors, and soloists in performance. He later donated this amazing trove of images to the UCLA Library allowing for this digitized collection...

For devotees of Alabama history (and even for those who aren't), the University of Alabama's Digital Collections are a real find. Currently, the site offers up more than a dozen digital collections, including The University of Alabama Encyclopedia and the Hugh Davis Farm Journals. The Hugh Davis Farm Journals are quite a find, as they offer an insightful portrait of a 19th century attorney and...

The University of Central Arkansas has thousands of photographs that document the state's rich cultural history. This digital collection offers up online finding aids that cover 32 different thematic collections. While you can't search a comprehensive archive, interested parties can look through the aids, which do in fact contain hundreds of lovely photos. Collections include Black History,...

Tucked away in the Palouse, the town of Moscow, Idaho is the dominant city in this particular corner of the state. Part of its dominance comes through the University of Idaho, which is the largest employer in the city. Over the past century or so, the school has grown by upgrading existing athletic facilities, constructing new dormitories, and the renovation the physical plant. This digital...