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Sixty years ago today the guns that thundered round Fort Sumter began the third and greatest modern civil war fought by English-speaking people. This war was quite as full of politics as were the other two--the War of the American Revolution and that of Puritan and Cavalier. But, though the present Chronicle never ignores the vital correlations between statesmen and commanders, it is a book of warriors, through and through.

An intensely personal account of the immigration experience as related by a young Jewish girl from Plotzk (a town in the government of Vitebsk, Russia). Mary Antin, with her mother, sisters, and brother, set out from Plotzk in 1894 to join their father, who had journeyed to the "Promised Land" of America three years before. Fourth class railroad cars packed to suffocation, corrupt crossing guards, luggage and persons crudely "disinfected" by German officials who feared the cholera, locked "quarantine" portside, and, finally, the steamer voyage and a famiily reunited. For anyone who has ever wondered what it was like for their grandparents or great grandparents to emmigrate from Europe to the United States last century, this is a fascinating narrative. Mary Antin went on to become an immigration rights activist. She also wrote an autobiography, The Promised Land, published in 1912, which detailed her assimilation into American culture. (Summary by Sue Anderson)

Sunshine Week is a project of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, with many other participants. It is "national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know." The website also says that "Sunshine Week is a non-partisan initiative whose supporters are conservative, liberal and everything in between."

"Welcome to Chronicling America, enhancing access to America's historic newspapers. This site allows you to search and view newspaper pages from 1880-1910 and find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP)."

This site uses a database containing genealogical information on emigrants from the Dutch province of Drenthe, which was compiled by researcher Arend Everts from Hoogeveen. He searched the 1840-1930 census records of all towns in this province and several towns in the provinces of Groningen and Overijssel for 'departed persons'. The data was then checked against information from the archives of Pella, Iowa, Holland, Michigan and Grand Rapids, Michigan. In addition to the emigrant indexes (passenger lists 1820-1880 and American census records 1850-1870) published by Robert Swieringa, 'Emigrants from Drenthe' aims to be a handy resource for genealogical research.

The History Box.com was created and is maintained by Miriam Medina, researcher and transcriber of the site. The History Box. com's educational intent is to provide information of historical interest that is relevant to the people of New York State, New York City and American history, and direct them to the sources that it has utilized which are available to the public. The contents of this site are derived from extensive research of public records, newspapers, books and web links. It is a source of quality information for researchers, historians, literary scholars, writers, historical societies and academic institutions.