On AHA Today we’re always looking for to bring you more digital resources. We start off this a video of a lecture given by David Levering Lewis, news of the Library of Congress’s new YouTube channel, an article on the possibility of future presidential libraries being digital, and a link to a new collection of digitized Food and Drug Administration documents. Then, see our selection of image related links, including LIFE magazine photos from the day Martin Luther King Jr. died, a four part series on a Civil War photograph mystery, and a look at the work of photographer Eddie Adams. Finally, read a Washington update from COSSA, learn about renovating a house to reflect its historic roots, explore the evolution of a skyscraper, and learn of the death of historian Sidney Fine.

Digital History

• David Levering Lewis: W.E.B. Du Bois as a Historical Novelist
  Hear David Levering Lewis lecture on “W.E.B. Du Bois’s largely-forgotten work as a writer of historical fiction” at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar. On a related note, hear about the future digitization of W.E.B Du Bois’s papers.
• YouTube, and Now We Do Too
  The Library of Congress announces its new YouTube channel.
• GW Bush Presidential Library Last One to be in a Building?
  Congress is looking for ways to cut the expense of overseeing such buildings, and some researchers say the traditional library setup for keeping presidential documents is outdated in a digital world. Federal archivists are asking the public for suggestions (until April 17) to run the library system at less cost but with better access to presidential papers. The National Archives and Records Administration will deliver its report to Congress this summer.
• Food and Drug Documents Digitized
  The Legal History Blog notes that, “the U.S. National Library of Medicine of the National Institutes of Health has digitized the Food and Drug Administration’s Notices of Judgment Collection, 1906-63.”

Images

• The Day MLK Died
  LIFE magazine provides never-before-seen photographs from the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. died.
• Whose Father Was He?
  In this four part series (read part one, two, three, and four) in the New York Times, Errol Morris unravels the mystery of a solider at Gettysburg who died clutching a photograph of his three children, the only identification (in a way) on him.
• The Vietnam War, Through Eddie Adams’ Lens
  Though Eddie Adams was a renowned photographer of many things, his photographs from the Vietnam War are what people are still talking about to this day. Read the stories behind these raw, gripping photographs.

What Else We’re Reading

• COSSA – Washington Update (PDF)
  The Consortium of Social Science Associations rounds up news from Washington in their latest newsletter (PDF).
• Homing in on your House’s History
  "We define our lives so closely by the spaces we’re in that I think there’s a natural curiosity about what has come before," says John Decker, a history enthusiast from Oregon. Renovating the porch on his 1912 house roused his curiosity on the rest of the house’s story. He recounts his experiences delving into his house’s history and how his journey into the past quickly became a community affair, as all of his neighbors grew curious of their own house’s history.
• The 1920s Skyscraper of the Future
  At the corner of Lexington Avenue and 49th Street in New York City, you’ll find one of Arthur Loomis Harmon’s architectural masterpieces: the 1920s Skyscraper of the Future. Explore the evolution of what we now call the Marriott East Side but what was originally the Shelton Hotel, a pinnacle of luxury during the 1920s.
• Longtime U-M historian Sidney Fine dies
  The Detroit Free Press notes the passing of Sidney Fine, historian and AHA member.

Contributors: David Darlington, Elisabeth Grant, Arnita A. Jones, and Jessica Pritchard

This post first appeared on AHA Today.