Born in Dover, Delaware in 1845, George Handy Bates was a lawyer who transitioned to Delaware politics by the early 1880s. In 1889, Bates was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as a special agent responsible for investigating the conditions in Samoa. He spent a great deal of time in there, and later in Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, and Tonga. His papers were donated to the University of Delaware...

Gift of the Indus: The Arts and Culture of Pakistan, presented by ARTSEDGE, the Kennedy Center's arts education network, introduces the arts and culture of Pakistan to young people and teenagers in the US, Pakistan, and all over the world, in the hope of fostering greater understanding. The site has three broad sections: The Nation, with information about the people and the land; Culture & Daily...

How does one stir the pot of creative possibilities, so to speak? It is a daunting challenge, and UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity is interested in exploring "new ways to turn creativity in developing countries into sustainable cultural industries." The Alliance was launched in 2002, and they have recently embarked on a number of public-private partnerships that are designed to...

Organized by the Museum for African Art, New York, and presented online by the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Grass Roots is a history of 300 years of African basket making, brought by African people to the American South. The grasses that grow in the marshes along the Atlantic coast in the Southern United States, where African slaves were brought to work on rice plantations, were...

The University of Toledo's Carlson Library has a large collection of Gypsy literature, and the University's commitment to Gypsy studies is documented in the "Introduction" section's "Vision Statement". Additionally, the "Introduction" provides a history of the study of gypsies, and how it always has been, and still is, fraught with debate. The "Photo Galleries" tab at the top of the page,...

Oral histories can be quite fascinating, and a number of significant collections have been placed online as of late. One of the best-known projects might be Harvard University's own Iranian Oral History Project (IOHP). The collection consists of the personal accounts of over 150 individuals who were eyewitnesses (or active participants) to a range of crucial political events in Iran from the 1920s...

In 2002, funding from the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland spurred the creation of the Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA). By 2005, the organization had defined its mission as a "network of national funding agencies and the European Science Foundation...committed to leading and developing funding opportunities for humanities researchers in Europe...and sharing management practices...

Over the past few years, there have been many long-term research projects dedicated to examining the role that Hispanics play (and will continue to play) in the transformation of American social, cultural and economic life. Located within this broad stream of often well-informed and intelligent research is this very fine volume published by the National Academies in 2006 titled "Hispanics and the...

The Hmong people came to the United States as refugees after the Vietnam War, and they were mainly resettled in California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The Hmong Cultural Center was established in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992, and their website has a wealth of resources "that enhance cross-cultural awareness and understanding between Hmong and non-Hmong persons." Visitors in the healthcare field...

What is Africa? It's a broad and important question, and it is something that the folks at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology find fascinating. This website is part of a 12-month project designed to look into the thoughts of visitors to the museum. The museum is also concerned with the thoughts of others who can't make the trip to Philadelphia, and users of...