American Treasures of the Library of Congress

A list with links to some of the major documents held in the collections of the Library of Congress. Sorted by major periods.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Provides resources by period, by topic, and reference sources. The historic games are particularly fun.

Words and Deeds in American History: Selected Documents Celebrating the Manuscript Division's First 100 Years

From the Library of Congress. Includes a chronological list of documents.

American Journeys

A project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day, with funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services of materials from the Society's collections.

Literary History of the American West

Sponsored by the Western Literature Association.

The National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial

A coalition of agencies created to mark the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark's three-year journey.

New York Public Library: Heading West and Touring the West

Images and text relating to two displays from the NYPL.

American Civil War Collections

From the University of Virginia's Electronic Text Center. The newspaper section is for UVa use only.

The Crisis of the Union

Created and maintained by the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University of Pennsylvania Library.

The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War

A highly-respected project from the Virginia Center for Digital History.

The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies

Full text from the Making of America site.

H-US1918-45, The New Deal Era and its Origins

Discussions and teaching tips from H-Net.

New Deal Network

An educational guide to the Great Depression.

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History

A substantial list from the University of Kansas.

American History from about.com

A list of useful links. about.com is a commercial site, so they're also selling services, including research assistance.

American Memory

Sources from the Library of Congress. My favorite starting point for material on the history of the United States.

American Studies Hypertexts at the University of Virginia

Includes works of fiction as well as non-fiction.

Antiquarian Maps at Reed College

Historical maps searchable by date, title, mapmaker, and area.

The Avalon Project

Documents in law, history, and government from the Yale Law School.

Best of History Web Sites

Based primarily on research done by Thomas Daccord, currently a history teacher and instructional technology consultant at the Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts. Sites are selected and rated based on guidelines from Oregon Public Education Network.

Doing History: Directories Listing Sites for Professional Historians and Doing History: Sites for Popular History

Selected and presented by the History Department at Lawrence.

Famous Trials

Created and maintained by Doug Linder, Professor of Law, University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School.

Internet Resources for History

From the librarians of the Seeley G. Mudd Library. This list includes some of the specific sites mentioned here and more.

Making of America

A collaborative effort of the University of Michigan and Cornell University.

NARA: National Archives and Records Administration

The National Archives site includes links to The Exhibit Hall and The Digital Classroom providing primary sources and related activities.

Smithsonian Institution

Provides a wealth of educational material. See especially the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History.

University of Georgia Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Drawn from the Hargrett Library's a collection of more than 800 historic maps spanning nearly 500 years, from the sixteenth century through the early twentieth century. Emphasizes Georgia and the east, but includes links to resources for other areas as well.

Virginia Center for Digital History

The source of several projects using primary resources. Topics include the American Civil War, Jamestown, race in America, Dolley Madison, and more.

AP Central pages from the College Board

The details from the official site. You must register (for free) if you want to take advantage of all of the features of this site.

A History Teacher's Bag of Tricks: Adventures In Roland Marchand's File Cabinet

A collection of lesson plans and primary texts for students from the middle school through university levels. Roland Marchand taught at University of California, Davis, specializing in 20th century United States History.

Internet History Sourcebooks Project [IHSP]

A project "designed to provide easy access to primary sources and other teaching materials in a non-commercial environment," developed and edited by Paul Halsall of Fordham University.

Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)

Resources for enhancing instruction.

Teaching with Documents

Lesson plans and links from the National Archives.

World Lecture Hall

WLH "links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language."

Teacher's sites:

Advanced Placement United States History by Terry Jordan
American High School's Advanced Placement United States History Class by Anthony Perno
Historyteacher.net by Susan M. Pojer.

Digital Librarian

"A librarian's choice of the best of the Web."

History

United States government publications from the University of Louisville's Ekstrom Library.

INFOMINE for History

From the University of California. You may want to look at the general INFOMINE categories or the resources for Social Sciences & Humanities.

Librarians' Index to the Internet

From the California State Libraries.

The Scout Report Archives

Sources selected and organized by the Internet Scout Project. The Project, located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is funded by the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to assist in the advancement of resource discovery on the Internet.

World Wide Web Virtual Library

Organized into four broad categories (Eras and Epochs, Countries and Regions, Historical Subtopics, and Other Useful Information).

Of course, there are many more web resources available that might be useful in your research. For brief background information on how to use some of the many available Internet search engines, see the guide to Selected Search Tools for WWW.

Primary sources on the web may be transcripts or reproductions of original documents. It's as important to evaluate primary sources on the web as secondary ones. You should be sure the documents you find have been made available by a reputable source. There should be some statement about the source of the original document, a description of the process used post it, and the name or names of the person, institution, or organization responsible for making the document available. You may want to consult this guide to Evaluating Internet Resources from the Lawrence library, this guide to Thinking Critically about World Wide Web Resources from UCLA, or this bibliography on Evaluation of Information Sources.

Try out your searching chops on the page for Searching the Web created for Professor Myer's AP Summer Institute.