1. http://www.aaa.si.edu/, Oral history interview with Kenneth M. Adams, 1964 Apr. 23, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
This web site is a free web resource searching the archival, manuscript, and photographic collections at the Smithsonian. The site also provides access to the Smithsonian American Art Museum inventories and pre-1877 art exhibition catalogues index.
While some of the information requires a request and is deliverable via email, most of the information is linked for immediate access. This site can be very useful for art review, art history, and anthropology study. The interview with Kenneth M. Adams discusses his art and involvement in New Mexico under the Federal arts projects of the WPA in the 1930s and 1940s.
2. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/ An American Time Capsule. Three Centuries of Broadsides and other Printed Ephemera.
In total, the collection comprises 28,000 primary-source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history. An American Time Capsule, the online presentation of the Printed Ephemera collection, comprises 17,000 of the 28,000 physical items.
The collection contains primary documents like images and pamphlets relating to events in American History and offers a first hand account of events as they happened. This collection can be referenced in a classroom to enhance critical thinking skills and jumpstart discussions of current events, propaganda usage and basic layout design.
3. http://www.preservationnation.org Historic Artists' Homes and Studios.
Historic Artists' Homes and Studios is a consortium of 30 of America's most significant artists' spaces that are open to the public and serve over 600,000 visitors each year. These extraordinary sites are the intimate living and work spaces of painters, sculptors, ceramicists, photographers, and furniture designers. They include superb collections and intact studios, landscapes, and homes dating as far back as the 17th century. Here, visitors may see original palettes and brushes, study plaster casts and tools, and look out of the artists’ windows to partake of the views that inspired them.
The images are limited for review on the site but a provided search database of locations can find places to visit narrowed down by region or state. This site would be useful to locate local places one can visit to experience a preserved home or studio. Lessons incorporating preservation importance, spatial design and architecture may find this resource particularly useful.
4. http://www.wga.hu/ Web Gallery of Art.
The Web Gallery of Art is a virtual museum and searchable database of European painting and sculpture of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism periods (1100-1850), currently containing over 22.600 reproductions. Picture commentaries, artist biographies are available.
The site contains pictures of actual works of art many would have to travel the globe to view in person. The site also contains original music from the 12th – 15th century in mp3 format. I would use this resource for studies on early European art and society, comparing and contrasting styles of art between time periods.
5. http://www.archivescanada.ca Canada’s archival record database.
Search more than 50,000 descriptions of archival records from the holdings of all provinces and territories including virtual exhibits created by Canadian archival institutions. View digitized photographs, maps, documents and online exhibits developed around Canada's history and browse digital projects produced through the Archival Community Digitization Program.
The site contains access for individual research or genre photographs on the history and development of Canada. When learning about diversity and cultural applications, government, socioeconomic backgrounds, etc. this site can provide original photos and letters to examine. Learning about another country so close to ours can be a great critical thinking and art history examination lesson.