Bringing History Home | General Resources

General Resources

Curriculum Information | General Resources

Selected History Websites

The Big Three

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts.

Home page
http://www.loc.gov/
Primary Source Search Site
http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/primary_sources/search.php
Search Tutorials
http://memory.loc.gov/learn/start/gs_search.html
On this page, click the link to the collection you wish to explore.

The Smithsonian Institute

The Smithsonian Institute is the world's largest museum complex and research organization. Composed of 16 museums and the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. and 2 museums in New York City, the Smithsonian's exhibitions offer visitors a glimpse into its vast collection numbering over 142 million objects.

Online Smithsonian History and Culture Archives
http://www.si.edu/history_and_culture/
Links to the Smithsonian Museums
http://www.si.edu/museums/

National Archives and Records Administration

NARA, an independent Federal agency, is the United States’ national record keeper. NARA seeks to ensure ready access to the essential evidence that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of Federal officials, and the national experience.

Home Page
http://www.archives.gov
Research Topics http://www.archives.gov/research_room/getting_started/research_by_topic.html
Search Tutorial
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/getting_started/getting_started.html

Additional Library of Congress Links

http://memory.loc.gov/
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/rbpehtml/pehome.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/index.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/index.html
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/primary.html
LOC Motion Picture and Reading Room
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/mopic
Pictures of Famous Americans
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/coolhtml/coolhome.html
Speeches
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wghtml/wghome.html

Additional NARA Links

General History Websites

The National History Education Clearinghouse
Digital History: An excellent index of various online resources – maps, biographies, museums, primary sources, interactive timeline, etc.!
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reference_room.cfm
Primary Source Learning: A search engine for finding primary sources in the Library of Congress digital archives
http://www.primarysourcelearning.org/primary_sources/search.php
Teacher’s Oz
http://www.teacheroz.com
American History Since Reconstruction
http://sage.tamu.edu/grades/US_History/additionalUShistory.htm
America's Story
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi
A History of Us - for Teachers
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/teachers/
The Educator's Reference Desk
http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/res.cgi/Subjects/Social_Studies/US_History
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire: Online Exhibit
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/
The New Deal Network: Document Library
http://newdeal.feri.org/texts/default.cfm
Project Gutenberg: Full Text Historical Books online
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Northwestern University Library: World War II Poster collection
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govinfo/collections/wwii-posters/
Rutgers Oral History Archive (focused on WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Cold War)
http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu//
Mark Kornbluh's American History since 1877 Online Readings
http://www.h-net.org/~hst203/readings.html
Columbus' First Letter (about the Americas)
http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/columbus/translation.html
The Internet History Sourcebooks
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/
The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/avalon.htm
American Women's History: Digital Collections
http://www.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women/wh-digcoll.html
Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
Historical Census Browser
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/
New York Public LIbrary Digital Collections
http://www.nypl.org/digital/
Drawing the Western Frontier
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/taylor/taylor.htm
Harper's Weekly on the Civil War
http://www.harpersweekly.com/
Harper's Magazine Archive (1850-2007)
http://www.harpers.org/archive
The Making of America (Cornell University)
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/
American Studies at the University of Virginia
(great gateway site; also has hypertexts from American history)
http://xroads.virginia.edu/

Justice Learning

http://www.justicelearning.org/

Milestone Documents

Interactive Websites Aligned with BHH units

Kindergarten

When They Were Young: A Photographic Retrospective of Childhood
Website -- http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/young/young-exhibit.html
This is a Library of Congress website. K students may explore the photos of children long ago to compare with the photos from their own childhoods. During the Children Long Ago unit, students may also find objects in the long ago photos that we don’t see in our daily lives today.

2nd Grade

An Interactive Tour of Ellis Island
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/tour/index.htm
Students take a virtual tour of Ellis Island.

3rd Grade

We do not currently have an interactive site identified for 3rd grade.

4th Grade

Alice Paul’s Attic
http://njhistorypartnership.org/home_page.html
On this site built by the New Jersey History Partnership, students explore the virtual contents of a historic suffragist’s attic and seek to answer questions about her life and work from the available sources.

5th Grade

The Road to Revolution Game
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/liberty/road.html
Twin Cities Public Television hosts this website. Our students may use this quiz-style interactive game as an engaging review and self-assessment.

Photos

Posters

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/wpahome.html

Maps

http://sage.tamu.edu/index.asp

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/maps/maps.cfm#topic
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/maplinks.htm
http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/collections/map/history.html
Map showing developing boundaries of U.S.
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/48states.html
Clearinghouse of Historic U.S. Map sites
http://geography.about.com/msub12.htm
Maps -- University of Texas Library Online
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_sites/hist_sites.html#US

Music

Oral History

History and Politics OUT LOUD (An archive of politically significant audio materials such as historic speeches.)
http://www.hpol.org/
Voices of the 20th Century
http://www.eyewinesstohistory.com

Museums

Statistics

http://www.library.uiuc.edu/doc/statistics.htm

Political Cartoons

Clipart

http://school.discovery.com/clipart/copyright.html

Television Network Companion Sites

History Lesson Plans

George Mason University ’s History News Network History Lesson Plan Finder
http://hnn.us/articles/875.html
History Teacher’s Mall Lesson Plan Collection, from Histor-e-search
http://www.historesearch.com/tlessons.html
Justice Learning – Powerful lessons for civic education
http://www.justicelearning.org/
SCORE History Resources
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/
Hispanic Heritage Activities
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/lesson-plans/lesson-6629.html?s1
Rubrics – from the Teach-nology site
http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/rubrics/

National History Organizations

National Center for History in the Schools
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/nchs/
Academic Info – U.S. History Gateway Clearinghouse
http://academicinfo.net/histus.html
National Council for the Social Studies
http://www.socialstudies.org/
National Council for History Education
http://www.history.org/nche/
Organization of American Historians
http://www.oah.org/