Accessing the American Memory collection: Browse by subject, chronology, and geography

Browsing the collections gives anyone new to American Memory a chance to get a sense of the scope and variety of its materials. For the experienced user, browsing allows you to unearth previously undiscovered resources—with over ten million iconic historical artifacts, chances are you’ll find something new. Even if you prefer to search you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find by browsing. Take your time and explore the collections of American Memory.

Start browsing

From the American Memory homepage, select a topic from Browse Collections by Topic. Each collection is categorized using broad subject headings like “Culture, Folklife” and “Women’s History” or according to format—“Maps” for example.

Once you select a topic you will see a list of collections. Each collection is classified by subject headings, format, and usually a date span. Underneath is the title of the collection. From here you can go directly to any collection if the title or format catches your attention. Select “Performing Arts, Music” and there are thirty-one collections to choose from. If Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip under the “Folk Music, Southern U.S.” heading looks interesting, click on the link and then browse by Photo Subject, Audio Subject, Song Text, Audio Title, Performer, or Photo. In this one collection there are images of an unidentified one-man band and the Pidgeon River Square Dance Team at the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina, as well as audio of Mrs. Kate W. Jones singing the lullaby “All Those Pretty Little Horses.”

If you want to look for more specific information you can search any or all of the related collections by checking or un-checking the box next to each collection. So, for example, if you select “Cities, Towns” from the home page of American Memory you will see thirteen collections listed. If you are interested in a specific town, simply type that town into the search box and you will be searching within the selected collections with information about cities and towns. A search for Beaufort returns twenty-two hits, many relevant to South Carolina but a quick scan of the results indicates several Beaufort, North Carolina resources as well. There are Civil War maps, a nautical survey of Beaufort harbor, and images of the fortified harbors from 1862 featuring Beaufort and nearby Ft. Macon. Results may be viewed as a list or use the gallery view to see thumbnail images of the resources.

More browsing

The Browse Collections page provides more specific topics than the American Memory home page as well as some added browsing features. From this page you may browse the materials by time period, selecting a time span from the 1400s to the present. In Browse by Place a geographic option is also provided, allowing the selection of an area as small as a quadrant of the United States. In addition you may select collections according to format, limiting your selection to collections featuring motion pictures, sheet music, or manuscripts. Finally, a comprehensive alphabetical list of collections organized by title or subject is available, simply select List All Collections.

Learn more about browsing American Memory

A very thorough tutorial for browsing the collections is available from the Browse Collections page. Be sure to check this out for more tips and strategies for finding something new and engaging in the American Memory collections.