Although designed for students enrolled in Al Filreis’ literature classes at the University of Pennsylvania, this site (http://dept.english. upenn.edu/∼afilreis/50s/home.html) will prove useful and intriguing for many other students and scholars, as well as anyone who has an interest in the 1950s era.
The site includes a reading list comprising hundreds of links to essays, excerpts, biographical sites, cartoons, photographs, film reviews, government reports and other materials available online. In addition to this list, links to additional research materials are made available. For example, links to the Fifties Site, the University of Toronto’s Stalin‐Era Research and Archives Project, National Archives pages and other university sites are provided. A list of Cold War‐related sites is also offered for those interested in the broader historical context.
While these links are useful, the heart of this site is the reading list. Examples of materials on the list include FBI files of writers like James Baldwin, Allen Ginsberg, and Lillian Hellman, information about nuclear war, obituaries of major figures, links to sites dealing with McCarthy and the blacklisting period, and film‐related sites. These items are listed in alphabetical order by most important word ‐ which may be the last name of the writer, the last name of the person the item is about, the name of an agency, or a general topic word. The site does offer a search option, but it offers confusing results.
In addition to individual links, a link back to the reading list always appears first on the list of results. For example, a search on “FBI” retrieved 42 results, the first of which was a link back to the reading list with a note that the term was found 11 times. Most of the other 41 items are also on the reading list, which makes the count of 11 appear skewed. Another issue with the search engine is that single search terms are recommended. A search on “James Baldwin” retrieved four results, the first of which is the link to the reading list with a note that the term was found twice. A search on “Baldwin” resulted in ten relevant results, with the reading list as the first result with a note that the word appears ten times within the list. Users may want to browse the reading list in addition to trying the search engine feature to ensure that all relevant items are found.
Apart from the organization and search function, another problem researchers may have with this site is that many of the pieces found here are unsigned and either uncredited or partially credited. For use with class discussions, this is not as problematic, but for students or researchers who want to take advantage of this wealth of information for their own projects, the lack of data for citation purposes will certainly be a drawback. It is also unclear whether copyright issues have been taken into consideration.
Overall, the page provides a wealth of information regarding literature, film, history and culture of the 1950s in the USA. The alphabetical organization and lack of citation data may hinder its use for some researchers, but the site should prove useful for anyone interested in learning more about the literature, history and cultural life of this era.
