American West

Resources in this category:

The American West
http://www.AmericanWest.com/

"A presentation of the history and development of the American West, from the Frontier- and Pioneer days with the Wild West, to today's Modern West."

Buffalo Soldiers & Indian Wars
http://www.buffalosoldier.net/

History of the Buffalo Soldiers. Includes text, photos, and video from the Library of Congress (RealPlayer required). A story in five parts.

The Buffalo Soldiers on the Western Frontier
http://www.kyhorsepark.com/museum/exhibit.php?exhibition=Buf...

Provides historical information and images concerning the role of African-Americans on the western frontier during the Civil War. Also includes a comprehensive bibliography of works related to the "Buffalo Soldier."

Colorado History in Photos, Primary Sources and Virtual Tours - Doing History
http://hewit.unco.edu/dohist/

Take a tour of Colorado’s past. "On your journey, you will meet miners and farmers, and ancient and historical Indians." Meant for children K-8

Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian
http://curtis.library.northwestern.edu/index.html

Twenty volumes of photogravure images of native North Americans produced by Edward Sheriff Curtis between 1907 and 1930. Accompanied by narrative text.

The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/icuhtml/fawhome.html

"15,000 pages of original historical material documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. Among the sources included are books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, scientific publications, broadsides, letters, journals, legal documents, ledgers and other financial records, maps, physical artifacts, and pictorial images. The collection documents the travels of the first Europeans to enter the trans-Appalachian West, the maps tracing their explorations, their relations with Native Americans, and their theories about the region's mounds and other ancient earthworks. Naturalists and other scientists describe Western bird life and bones of prehistoric animals. Books and letters document the new settlers' migration and acquisition of land, navigation down the Ohio River, planting of crops, and trade in tobacco, horses, and whiskey. Leaders from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Isaac Shelby, William Henry Harrison, Aaron Burr, and James Wilkinson comment on politics and regional conspiracies. Documents also reveal the lives of trans-Appalachian African Americans, nearly all of them slaves; the position of women; and the roles of churches, schools, and other institutions."

History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/codhtml/hawphome.html

"Over 30,000 photographs, drawn from the holdings of the Western History and Genealogy Department at Denver Public Library, illuminate many aspects of the history of the American West. Most of the photographs were taken between 1860 and 1920. They illustrate Colorado towns and landscape, document the place of mining in the history of Colorado and the West, and show the lives of Native Americans from more than forty tribes living west of the Mississippi River. Also included are World War II photographs of the 10th Mountain Division, ski troops based in Colorado who saw action in Italy."

Meeting of Frontiers
http://frontiers.loc.gov/intldl/mtfhtml/mfsplash.html

"Meeting of Frontiers is a bilingual, multimedia English-Russian digital library that tells the story of the American exploration and settlement of the West, the parallel exploration and settlement of Siberia and the Russian Far East, and the meeting of the Russian-American frontier in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest." Maps, photographs, and original manuscripts are provided.

Mountain Men and the Fur Trade
http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/amm.html

Here you can find sources of history relating to the Fur Trade in the Rocky Mountain West. Sources include diaries, narratives, letters, images and more.

The Online Archive of Terry's Texas Rangers
http://www.TerrysTexasRangers.org/

this site contains information on Texas Rangers. "The information on these pages comes from a wide variety of sources, and should be useful to the genealogist, historian, and reenactor. It should be interesting and informative to the casual passerby as well."

The Oregon Trail
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Oregontrail.html

The "Oregon Trail web site is based on the award-winning documentary film aired nationally on PBS stations." You can read about the history of the Oregon Trail and the historic sites located along it.

The Overland Trail
http://www.over-land.com/

Describes how and why the Overland Trail began in 1862 and how it came to and end. Other information on stations, stops, landmarks, personalities is also included.

Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/umhtml/umhome.html

"Portrays the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century through first-person accounts, biographies, promotional literature, local histories, ethnographic and antiquarian texts, colonial archival documents, and other works drawn from the Library of Congress's General Collections and Rare Books and Special Collections Division. The collection's 138 volumes depict the land and its resources; the conflicts between settlers and Native peoples; the experience of pioneers and missionaries, soldiers and immigrants and reformers; the growth of local communities and local cultural traditions; and the development of regional and national leadership in agriculture, business, medicine, politics, religion, law, journalism, education, and the role of women."

Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/upbhtml/overhome.html

"Incorporates 49 diaries, in 59 volumes, of pioneers trekking westward across America to Utah, Montana, and the Pacific between 1847 and the meeting of the rails in 1869. In addition to the diaries, the collection includes 43 maps, 82 photographs and illustrations, and 7 published guides for immigrants. Stories of persistence and pain, birth and death, God and gold, trail dust and debris, learning, love, and laughter, and even trail tedium can be found in these original "on the trail" accounts. The collection tells the stories of Mormon pioneer families and others who were part of the national westering movement, sharing trail experiences common to hundreds of thousands of westward migrants. The source materials are drawn from the collections of Brigham Young University, members of the Utah Academic Libraries Consortium, and other archival institutions in Utah, Nevada, and Idaho."

The West
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/

Here you can tour the West or explore the people, places, and events that made the West famous. It also includes an archive of western documentary materials.

Westward by Sea: A Maritime Perspective on American Expansion, 1820-1890
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/mymhihtml/

"This selection of items from Mystic Seaport's archival collections includes logbooks, diaries, letters, business papers, and published narratives of voyages and travels. The unique maritime perspective of these materials offers a rich look at the events, culture, beliefs, and personal experiences associated with the settlement of California, Alaska, Hawaii, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. A number of photographs, paintings, maps, and nautical charts are also included to illustrate the story of Americans’ western seaborne travel. Various themes are touched upon, including whaling, life at sea, shipping, women at sea, and native populations."

Women of the West Museum
http://www.museumoftheamericanwest.org/explore/exhibits/suff...

This website provides historical information about the struggle for women's suffrage in the American West. Included is a timeline of significant events, biographies, further resources, and activities pertaining to this topic.