A Northwest Historian’s Tour of the Internet
                               Larry Cebula
                     Washington State Digital Archives
                      Eastern Washington University




Spokane Mayor Burch with "Biggest Indian" Contest Winner Charles Libby, 1909.
www.northwesthistory.blogspot.com
American Journeys
Documenting the American South
Fold3.com
Google Book Search
Washington State Digital Archives
LOC Digital Collections
LOC Chronicling America Historic Newspapers Project
Northwest Digital Archives
Digital Collections from WSU
Case Study:
Indians and the City Beautiful in Spokane, 1880-1910

   •What online resources are
   available?

   •Where do we look?

   •What necessary resources are not
   available?

   •Do we find things that we would
   have overlooked in traditional
   research?
Google Book Search for keyword “Spokane” limited to full text
C. B. Carlisle,
Spokane County
as it Is: Solid
Facts and Actual
Results
(Spokane, 1883)
42-43.
Matsura Collection Images matching the keyword “Spokane.”
Historical Newspapers in Washington from the Secretary of State
Advanced Searching of Historical Newspapers in Washington
Spokane Falls Review
» 6/16/1883 » Page 2
» Column 2
To Be Removed
Spokane Falls
Review » 1/19/1884
»
Page 3 » Column 4
Two Articles from
 Page 1 of the
 Spokane Falls
    Review:
  “Somewhat
    Tough”
      and
    “An Indian
   Ishmaelite”
The Making of America database has a
sophisticated search engine.
Washington State Digital Archives
Death
 Certificate
for Spokane
 Garry, Jan.
  14, 1892
Jeremiah Indian,
  11/20/1904
UVA Historical Census Browser
Univ. of OK:
Indian Claims
 Commission
   Records
PDF versus Scanned Text!
Additional Possible
        Online Sources
Census Data
Additional Historical Image collections
Digitized Oral histories
A good starting point for Spokane history
is this page at the MAC:
http://www.northwestmuseum.org/index.cfm/R
What are We Missing?
Modern Secondary Sources
– Ruby and Brown, Children of the Sun
– Youngs, Fair and Falls
Most Archival Records
Newspapers not Digitized
Holding of Small Historical Societies
Etc. etc.
Needs and Prospects
Digital primary sources have a place in the
classroom
Digital primary sources have a place in
published scholarship
Historians need to keep up!
We need a centralized resource page for
“deep” digital archives
www.northwesthistory.blogspot.com

Local history online