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OTC: Notes of Interest, No. 5

This week's collection of notes of interest from around the Web:
Web resource for Depression studies: "American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940" at the Library of Congress; the site contains "the life stories of more than 10,000 men and women from a variety of regions, occupations and ethnic groups. People who told stories of life and work during the 1930s include an Irish maid from Massachusetts, a woman who worked in a North Carolina textile mill, a Scandinavian iron worker, a Vermont farm wife, an African-American worker in Chicago meat packing house, and a clerk in Macy's department store."

"Tracing Capitalism around the Globe" is a Cambridge University Press blog interview with Larry Neal and Jeffrey Williamson, coeditors of CUP's Cambridge History of Capitalism.

More on Thomas Piketty:
   a weekly series of substantive posts by Adam David Morton
   "Piketty Envy" from The Chronicle Review
   A handy "Piketty Reviews Round-Up" from The Century (as of July 1)

The National Archives blog published a piece using a "Petition of mechanics and manufacturers of the City of New York, April 18, 1789" to explain the economic deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation: "Why Did We Need a New Constitution?"

The Legal History Blog discusses Kenneth Lipartito's contribution on "The Antimonopoly Tradition" to the University of St. Thomas Law Journal. The special issue of the journal results from a symposium on the history of law and corporate responsibility; the other essays from the symposium are also available ungated, here.

The Imperial and Global History Forum has a piece by Mats Ingulstad, Andrew Perchard, and Espen Storli, editors of the recently published Tin and Global Capitalism, 1850-2000: A History of the “Devil’s Metal” (Routledge, 2014), in which they discuss the background of their topic and explain the History and Strategic Raw Materials Initiative.

The Worcester Polytechnic Institute, with sponsorship by the American Antiquarian Society, maintains a Searchable Database of Early American Mechanical Drawings. Although the database does not include an image of every drawing, many are available. Those interested in early American technology might also like to consult the digitized run of Scientific American made available online by Cornell University Library as part of the Making of America project.

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