History WORKS II Historical Resources

Reviewed Web Sites


Women Working, 1870-1930, Harvard University Library Women Working, 1870 - 1930 provides access to digitized historical, manuscript, and image resources selected from Harvard's library and museum collections. This collection explores women's roles in the US economy between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Working conditions, conditions in the home, costs of living, recreation, health and hygiene, conduct of life, policies and regulations governing the workplace, and social issues are all well documented. The collection currently contains 2,396 books and pamphlets, 1,075 photographs, and 5,000 pages from manuscript collections.

9/11 Digital Archive The 9/11 Digital Archive is a collection of images, art, and video and audio recording surrounding the events of September 11 and the aftermath. Brief interpretation accompanies each image. The site allows users to post their own images and thoughts.

A Brush with History: Paintings from the National Portrait Gallery The National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian has digitized a number of its portraits of famous Americans. The left side of the screen lists the subjects chronologically, and each entry provides a brief biography.

AdAccess Another site from Duke University, AdAccess presents images of over 7,000 advertisements in the U.S. and Canada from 1911 to 1955. You can browse by category (beauty and hygiene, radio, television, transportation, World War II) or you can search by keyword or other categories. It is especially useful for discussing gender, racial, and ethnic stereotypes, the evolution of consumer culture, and the history of the media.

America Votes: Presidential Campaign Memorabilia Created by the Duke University Special Collections Library, this site features digitized primary materials from presidential campaigns from 1796 to 2000, such as campaign posters, buttons, pamphlets, and sheet music.

American Labor Studies Center The American Labor Studies Center, located in Troy, NY, provides access to a variety of educational resources through this site. There is easy access to a number of primary sources including photographs and music. The site also contains over 20 lesson plans, an interactive timeline of labor history, a condensed history of American labor and biographies of the principle personalities.

American Memory (Library of Congress) American Memory is an online archive of over 100 collections of rare and unique items important to Americas heritage. The collections are primarily the property of the Library of Congress and contain more than 7 million primary source documents, photographs, films, and recordings that reflect the collective American memory. Users can search the site by time period, place, LOC division, material format, digital format, and keyword. Each image is accompanied by basic information including author/creator, date, title, brief summery, etc. Each image is available in several digital formats and sizes. American Memory also provides a Learning Page specifically for teachers. The Learning Page contains lesson plans, information on professional development, bulletin boards, and many other features.

American Museum of the Moving Image: The Living Room Candidate This is an online exhibit on the history of presidential campaign commercials from 1952 to 2000. The actual commercials have been digitized, although you need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player to access the video files. There is a "Teacher's Guide" that features lesson plans; click on the "Educational Materials" link to find it.

American Transcendentalism One of the most extensive online resources for information about transcendentalism. The material is weighted heavily toward secondary sources.

An American Family: The Beecher Tradition Based on an exhibit at the Newman Library at Baruch College, the City University of New York, this website uses the Beecher family to illustrate social change and reform in the 19th century. Digitized primary sources include portraits, letters, pamphlets, and engravings.

Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Document in Law, History and Diplomacy The Avalon Project at Yale Law School is a collection of documents chronicling the American law, history, and diplomacy. Each document is available in a transcribed form, no digitized reproduction of the original is available at this time.

BBC: History This site from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) features a variety of links, resources, and activities on British, European, and world history, including some U.S. history topics, although it does not contain lesson plans.

Berlin Wall Images This site features two dozen images related to the Berlin Wall. Click on each thumbail to access a larger image that you can print or download.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online Produced by the Brooklyn Public Library, this site has digitzed the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from 1841 to 1902. You can search by keyword, date range, content type, or browse through a subject list.

Center for Understanding the Built Environment (CUBE) CUBE's is a non-profit organization of educators, architects and preservationists who are interested in helping children identify, appreciate and take an active role in the development of their community. The web site contains a number of lesson plan, curriculum and teacher resources that center around cityscapes and independent architecture.

CIA Freedom of Information Act: Electronic Reading Room The CIA has digitized agency documents relating to the Cold War. They are divided by topic, including the Bay of Pigs, the Rosenberg case, and American involvement in the 1954 Guatemalan coup. Many of the documents have redacted sections.

Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s From the Ohio State University Department of History, this site focuses on four themes: The New Woman, the Scopes Trail, Anti-Immigration and the KKK, and Prohibition.

Cleveland Memory Project Cleveland Memory is a collaborative effort of the Special Collections Department, Digital Processing Unit, and Systems Division at the Cleveland State University Library. The site contains digital images, books, and exhibits concerning the history of Cleveland, OH.

CNN: Cold War A companion site to CNN's documentary series on the history of the Cold War, this site includes interactive maps, archival footage, oral history interviews, and declassified documents. The "Educators' Guide" section features an episode guide sorted by NCSS theme, essential questions, and suggested classroom activities.

Digital History: Using new technologies to enhance teaching and research This resource center provides American history teachers with an abundance of material for classroom instruction, activities, and research. Among the many choices available, users can search through electronic copies of primary sources, use the interactive timeline, read essays, search biographies, and use resource guides.

EdSITEment, National Endowment for the Humanities This site is a collection of web resources for the humanities. The intent is to provide teachers with a listing of resources for the classroom. There are four categories to choose from (Art & Culture, Language & Literature, History & Social Studies, and Foreign Languages). Each category lists both lesson plans and web sites.

Electronic Oberlin Group: Oberlin Through History EOG's site introduces visitors to Oberlin, Ohio's history. The site contains information about people, places, and documents. The site also provides a timeline of Oberlin, activities for teachers and students, exhibits and links. Primary source resources available through the site are both digitized reproductions and transcriptions.

Experiencing War: Stories from the Veterans History Project, Library of Congress This site is part of the Library of Congress's Veterans History Project. Veterans from World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the First Gulf War recall their experiences. It includes reminiscences and letters combined with related photographs and historical documents, such as enlistment records. Both men and women veterans are included.

Farewell to Manzanar: Teacher Guide This is an online supplemental unit to the book Farewell to Manzanar: Life in a Japanese-American Internment Camp by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houson and James D. Houston. It includes several student activities that can be used with the book or adapted. It also provides links to other on-line resources about internment camps. Created by the San Diego County Office of Education.

Fifty Years of Coca-Cola Television Advertisements This site is from the Motion Picture Archives at the Library of Congress. It includes a timeline of Coca-Cola advertising themes from 1886 to 1999 and video files of many of Coca-Cola's most notable television ads from 1950 to 1999.

For European Recovery: The Fiftieth Anniversary of the Marshall Plan An online exhibit from the Library of Congress, this site provides a lot of useful information about the Marshall Plan, including a list of key dates, maps, newspaper articles, and political cartoons from the era.

Franklin and His Friends: Portraying the Man of Science in Eighteenth Century America This online exhibit from the Smithsonian presents portaits of men interested in science and their scientific accomplishments. These images can be useful to illustrate social context and social class during 18th century America and how men of science constructed a social identity.

Freedom Fighters: United States Colored Troops in the Civil War This site, created and maintained by the Washington Senior High School (Washington City Schools, Washington Court House, OH) Research History Class, contains a wealth of information on African American soldier from and buried in Ohio. In addition to a summary history of African American soldiers, the site provides links to databases of burial sites in Ohio and other states, archival databases, federal reports, census information, and a variety of other primary sources and original research conducted by this class. The site serves as a model for historical research at the state and local levels.

George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress This site from the Library of Congress includes approximately 152,000 digitized images from the George Washington Papers. It also features a timeline, an online exhibit of maps created by Washington when he worked as a surveyor, and an online exhibit of Washington's diaries.

Greater Cincinnati Memory Project Headed by the Great Cincinnati Library Consortium, the Greater Cincinnati Memory Project collects and makes available historical resources pertaining to the Cincinnati area. The site is easily searchable and contains more than 5,800 images. A large printable version of each image is available and is accompanied by basic information including title, date, rights, etc.

Harper's Weekly HarpWeek contains a collection of images and articles from Harper's Weekly. The site offers a searchable database and topical exhibits. Purchase is required to use some of the features.

HarpWeek: Explore History This site, from Harper's Weekly, includes many historical resources and teaching suggestions for 19th century American history. One feature is a searchable database of Harper's Weekly issues, a highlighted political cartoon that rotates daily, and access to free sites about African American history, the history of the West, presidential elections, and many other topics. Click on the "free features" tab, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on "Education at HarpWeek" to access a site created by an experienced AP teacher. It includes simulation activities for Andrew Johnson's impeachment and the Civil War, among others.

Herblock's History: Political Cartoons from the Crash to the Millennium Herbert Block was a noted newspaper cartoonist of the 20th century. This site is an online exhibit from the Library of Congress and provides access to many of Herblock's cartoons from 1929 to 2000.

Historical Atlas of the 20th Century Created by a librarian, this site features maps of Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Africa throughout the 20th century. There are various types of maps, showing population trends, urban growth, and border changes, among other developments. There are also charts and graphs presenting additional statistical data on the 20th century.

History Matters This site is the result of a partnership between City University of New York, Graduate Center and George Mason University. The site is full of useful links to history-oriented web sites, tutorials, digitized primary sources, pedagogy and classroom activities.

Historyteacher.net This site is a resource center for history teachers. Features include: links to topic-specific history sites, resources for Social Studies teachers, and AP testing resources.

Home Sweet Home: Life in Nineteenth Century Ohio, Library of Congress This site focuses on 19th century family life in Cincinnati, OH. There are five sections including Family Life, Singing Schools, Religion, Rural Values, Temperance, Parlor Music, and Minstrel Songs. Each section allows access to primary source material in visual and audio formats and comes complete with a history of the city and society as well as background history for each object/source, bibliographies, and biographies of people integral in the shaping of the period.

I Hear American Singing, Library of Congress Launched in January 2004, this site is a portal to the music and performing arts collections at the Library of Congress. It includes essays from historians, digitized music files, photographs, and a historic sheet music collection. One notable exhibit, accessible from the homepage, is on "Life in Nineteenth Century Ohio." They plan to add content for K-12 educators in the near future.

Images of Political History Images of Political History is a database of non-copyrighted images intended for use in teaching materials. Users are encouraged to make use of the collection. Each image is available in two sizes of jpeg and include a brief historical note.

Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail, National Park Service This site provides brief but clear information on the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The majority of the site is focused on planning a trip along the NPS trail. However, the Visitor Information Link provides a clear and concise history of the expedition, modern and historic maps and images, and lesson plans.

Lewis and Clark Project Co-sponsored by NASA and the University of Montana, the Lewis and Clark Project combines history, geography, and technology to recreate the experience of traveling with the Corps of Discovery. The web site is interactive, allowing students to participate in the ongoing collection of data and interpretation of geographic changes along the trail. Users can also search historic maps and journal entries on-line.

Lewis and Clark: The Maps of Exploration 1507-1814 University of Virginia Library and the Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation's Lewis and Clark: The Maps of Exploration 1507-1814 examines the planning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the cartographic tradition that made the expedition possible. This web site shows the evolving views of the American continent as they appear in maps up to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. It focuses especially on the earliest cartographic representations of America and the Northwest Passage, the results of early expeditions to the Mississippi basin in search of a route to the Pacific Ocean, and the early exploration of the Pacific Northwest. The web site is organized chronologically and culturally providing a narrative and zoom-able, printable historic maps.

MarcoPolo MacroPolo is a consortium of national education organizations, state education agencies and the MarcoPolo Education Foundation. The site provides access to a collection of standards-based, discipline-specific educational Web sites for K-12 teachers.

Marketing in the Modern Era: Trade Catalogs and the Rise of 19th Century American Advertising This is an online exhibit from the Harvard Business School's Baker Library. It explores the role of the trade catalog in the modernization of advertising during the latter half of the 19th century. Its strength lies in the variety of images of 19th century industry and advertising.

National History Day The National History Day web site contains a great deal of information on the program and the current competition including rules, dates, resources, and advice. The site also offers teacher workshops, curriculum and news. The site is a one-stop-shop for NHD participants.

National History Day in Ohio 1982 Velma Avenue Columbus, OH 43211 (614) 297-2618 The Ohio History Day web site is a guide to the State's competition. The site provides link and information for district, state, and national competitions as well as resources for parents, teachers, and students.

National Register of Historic Places, Teaching with Historic Places Teaching with Historic Places is a resource center that provides teachers, students, historians, and preservationists with ideas, curriculum, guides, and technical information regarding the use of historic places in learning activities. This site is an excellent resource for finding history in the local landscape and instituting non-traditional instruction.

National Security Archive: Electronic Briefing Books, George Washington University The National Security Archive is an independent, non-governmental research institute and library at George Washington University. They have gained access to and digitized government documents relating to all aspects of U.S. foreign policy, including the Cold War. This page links to these "electronic briefing books," divided by topic.

OAH's Magazine of History "Rethinking the Cold War", Vol. 8, no. 2, Winter 1994 This issue of the OAH Magazine of History, "Rethinking the Cold War," includes online lesson plans for teaching such topics as the Cuban missile crisis, the space race, Cold War-era films.

Ohio Memory Online Scrapbook Ohio Memory brings together historical resources from around the state concerning Ohio's history. Users are able to search the site by date, topic, county, and contributor. Ohio Memory provides featured scrapbooks, historical background for each object, a zoom feature, and printable versions of images.

OhioPix OhioPix is an image gallery from the Audiovisuals Department of the Ohio Historical Society Archives-Library. The site is updated monthly. Users can search the site by people, places, objects, and events, as well as an advanced search option. Pre-existing galleries include: women in Ohio, the Ohio State Fair, early settlement and statehood, famous Ohioans, and History Day.

Our Common Center (Oberlin, OH) Our Common Center is an open database of images from the collections of the Oberlin Historical and Improvement Organization (O.H.I.O.) in association with the Oberlin Electronic Group. The database requires an advanced search and all resources are digital reproductions of the primary sources. The site contains a vast amount of resources and is very easy to use.

PBS Teacher Source This PBS site provides lesson plans and ideas for classroom activities for all grade levels and many areas of social studies, including world history, American history, civics, and economics. The lesson plans are correlated to the national standards.

Popular Songs in American History This site contains a collections of popular and folk songs from American history. The music is listed chronologically and catagorically by genre. A search engine is also available. Individual song pages contain the lyrics, a short history and links to related pages.

Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929 From the Library of Congress American Memory project, this site explores the prosperity of the Coolidge years and the nation's transition to a mass consumer economy. It includes photographs, audio and video files, legislative documents, and pamphlets. It is particularly strong in advertising and mass-marketing materials.

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic Another great online exhibit from the Library of Congress, this focuses on American colonists' religious beliefs and the Founders' struggle with the role of religion in public life. It includes a historical overview and digitized primary sources, including some excellent paintings, posters, and other visual materials.

Sandusky County Scrapbook This web site is a cooperative of four libraries in Sandusky County, OH, intended to showcase historical documents and images from the county's history and make them available to the public.

Scribbling Women Scribbling Women, an award-winning project of The Public Media Foundation, dramatizes stories by American women writers for public radio. The web site provides companion activities for the classroom.

Teaching with Historic Places: Lesson Plans A variety of user-friendly lesson plans available for immediate classroom use, from the National Register of Historic Places. The plans are easily searchable by time period, location, theme, or National History Standard. They are designed for middle school students but can be adapted to all levels.

The African-American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920 The African-American Experience in Ohio 1850-1920 is a digital collection brought together from a number of individual sources specifically for this project. These sources include manuscript collections, newspaper articles, serials, photographs, and pamphlets. The site's intention is to bring together as many diverse sources as possible to provide evidence of the diversity and complexity of African-American culture during this time period and to let those sources tell their own story without interpretation.

The American 1950s Created by an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, this site is an alphabetical index of topics related to the 1950s, with biographical entries, links to external sites, and primary materials. It includes a lot of materials on the Cold War at home.

The Atlantic World: America and the Netherlands This site was created by the Library of Congress and the National Library of the Netherlands to tell the story of the Dutch presence in America and American-Dutch interactions from Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage to the post-World War II period. It includes over 11,000 images of digitized primary materials such as paintings, maps and brochures.

The Authentic History Center This site provides easily accessible digitized primary sources on American history. The materials are organized chronologically, ranging from the American Revolution to 9/11, and an index box is on the left side of the homepage. It includes a variety of types of sources, including audio files.

The Digital Shoebox Project: Historical Treasures from Southeastern Ohio This site is digital archive of primary sources from the collections of 14 SOLO libraries. The site contains a browse and search feature, while individual item pages include enlarged images and descriptions. The Digital Shoebox Project also allows users to create a scrapbook under the "My Favorites" link.

The Heritage Education Network (T.H.E.N.) T.H.E.N. is a web resource center for teachers, students, and anyone interested in history. The site offers tutorials on material culture, photography, cemeteries, architecture and many other research topics. In addition, the site provides a growing list of history resources by state.

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson This site offers free access to Harper's Weekly coverage of Johnson's impeachment, including editorials, political cartoons, and other images. It also includes an "impeachment simulation game" for classroom use.

The Lost Museum This unique website explores Phineas T. Barnum's American Museum, which was in New York City from 1841 until it burned to the ground in 1865. It is very useful for exploring consumer culture and public entertainment in the 19th century. The site has three sections: a 3-D interactive Museum, a searchable Archive of primary sources, and a Classroom of teaching activities and resources in English and History. It was created by the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning at the Graduate Center/CUNY in collaboration with the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Please note that you need Macromedia Flash Player to best view this site.

The National Archives Learning Curve: Cold War The Learning Curve is a site designed specifically for teachers by the British National Archives. This online exhibit on the Cold War includes six galleries, which can be used together or independently. It includes a teacher's guide with classroom activities and teachers' notes. Keep in mind that it is designed for the British national history curriculum, but you should find some useful hints and lesson plans.

The Oneida Community Collection The Syracuse University library has digitized many of its primary sources on the Oneida Community. The site includes a photograph collection and digitizations of Oneida community founder John Humphrey Noyes's writings.

The Quotations Page Primarily, this site is a searchable database of quotes. In addition, the site allows users to contribute quotes and post messages to other users via the Forum.

Thomas Jefferson Digital Archive University of Virgina Library From the Electronic Text Center at the University of Virginia, this site offers transcripts and digital reproductions of many of Jefferson's letters from UVA's Special Collections. It also includes materials relating to the founding of UVA and a searchable database of Jefferson quotes.

Time Life Pictures Time Life Pictures is a collection of photographs and magazine covers that span the publication of Time & Life. The images are searchable and galleries surrounding particular events and topics are available. Very basic information is included with each image including title, photographer, date, and catalog number.

TreasureNet: Historical Image Collection This site is a collection of historical images that can be used for educational instruction. The images are broken down by topic, and provide both low and high resolution files with limited metadata.

Tupperware! This is the companion website to the recent PBS American Experience documentary on Tupperware. In addition to a timeline, gallery of images, and interview transcripts, it includes a Teacher's Guide with suggestions for active learning in civics, economics, geography, and history.

U.S.C.T. Buried in Ohio: African American Soldiers in the Civil War Created by the Washington Senior High School (Washington City Schools, Washington Court House, OH) Research History Class, this site lists the names and locations of United States Colored Troops from the US Civil War buried in Ohio. The site breaks down soldiers by regiment and allows users to searching by name and county. In addition, photos of grave markers, soldiers and other related audiovisual material is available.

United States Colored Troops Buried in Ohio This page is maintained by the Washington Senior High research history class, led by teacher Paul LaRue, in Washington Court House, Ohio. For several years, Mr. LaRue's class has been tracking gravesites of Civil War-era U.S. Colored Troops, and this site indexes all of the gravesites they have found in Ohio by county.

Veterans History Project This site, part of the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center, is devoted to oral histories of American military veterans. The site offers a variety of resources to be used in conjunction with audio formatted interviews available at the site through streaming audio.

Whole Cloth: Discovering Science and Technology through American History Created by the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), this site includes curricular material on the history of technology, science, and invention. Unit 2, "Early Industrialization," is especially useful for teachers.

Women and Social Movements in the US, 1775-2000 This site is sponsored by the Center for the Historical Study of Women and Gender at SUNY Binghamton. It includes well-indexed and easily searchable digitized primary documents and a "teacher's corner" with lesson ideas, DBQ's, and other resources.

Worthington Memory Worthington Memory is the local history initiative resulting from a partnership between the Worthington Libraries and the Worthington Historical Society. WM provides access to digital reproductions of historical documents and photographs, a searchable online index to local 19th and 20th century newspapers, and a collection of oral histories and photographic documentation of the bicentennial year. The site allows users to perform keyword searches as well as browse by decade or by 27 pre-selected categories. Finally, the WM provides a number of lesson plans that can be used in conjunction with the site.