The Washington DC area is itself an exciting and rich "classroom" for studying American Culture and history, yet for many students at area colleges and universities all but the most obvious of these resources too often remain unknown and invisible. The project on "Studying American Culture: Bridging Virtual and Local Resources" seeks to promote ways of building bridges between the materials studied in American culture classrooms and local area resources. The centerpiece of the project is the creation of this Web site, an online resource center for studying the 1930s in America.

The site, entitled "New Deal Cultures: National and Local Resources," will bring together a wide array of information on archival and online resources for studying America in the 1930s. At the core of the site will be a rich mapping of ocal resources for studying this all important era in American history. Through the creation of a Consortium Database of American Culture Scholars and Teachers, the project will work to introduce the Web site and the "bridging" concept to area faculty in all related fields.