Saturday, July 05, 2008

Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera, Free Until July 31, 2008

One of my cousins wrote me this morning to let me know about a collection of Civil War images online that is giving away free access until July 31, 2008.

According to their website:

"Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera presents the dramatic imagery of nineteenth-century Americana as experienced from the social, military, and political perspectives. At completion, the collection will present 75,000 images drawn from archives around the country, documenting the camp and battle experiences of Union and Confederate soldiers of all ranks, time spent in hospitals and in prisons, civilian life in cities and towns close to and far from the front lines of war, and the demeanor of the politicians whose decisions could bring the nation together or tear it apart. Many of the images in the collection were captured by famous and lesser-known innovators working with the burgeoning medium of nineteenth-century photography. Additionally, graphical content such as envelopes, song sheets, recruiting posters, imprints, and cartoons give users the ability to research how wartime America illustrated their times visually. With Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera, researchers and students can now see the moments—both monumental and mundane--that occurred as the nation stood divided.

Regular updates of Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera ensure an ever-expanding trove of fully-searchable images. Most of the materials have been gathered from extensive archives of nineteenth-century Americana. Partnerships with these archives allow the collection to bring forth previously unpublished photographs and posters to further scholarship of the Civil War. All images are organized around key broad subject areas in the field, allowing users to proceed directly to visual narratives of social, political, and military aspects of the war. Additionally, each image contains a short contextual note and is indexed for available data such as photographer, year, and setting. The result is a widely searchable database that gives researches unprecedented access to the highly visual record of the Civil War experience.

Note: The current release of Images of the American Civil War is a beta version."

You can view the collection here: Images of the American Civil War: Photographs, Posters, and Ephemera

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