Pacific States (Western)

Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington

Resources in this category:

Alaska State Archives
http://www.archives.state.ak.us/

The Alaska State Archives "is the repository that preserves the government records of Alaska's history and makes these records accessible to its patrons in a safe, professional, and responsible manner." The site provides access to photographs and information about researching genealogy in Alaska.

Alaska Historical Society
http://www.alaskahistoricalsociety.org/

The Alaska Historical Society is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization dedicated to the promotion of Alaska history by the exchange of ideas and information, the preservation and interpretation of resources, and the education of Alaskans about their heritage.

Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition Collection
http://content.lib.washington.edu/aypweb/index.html

"655 photographs from the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition Collection document the fair held on the campus of the University of Washington during the summer of 1909. Images include depictions of the buildings, grounds, entertainment, and exotic attractions at the fair."

Alaskan Native Knowledge Network
http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/

"The Alaskan Native Knowledge Network is designed to serve as a resource for compiling and exchanging information related to Alaska Native knowledge systems and ways of knowing. It has been established to assist Native people, government agencies, educators and the general public in gaining access to the knowledge base that Alaaska Natives have aquired through cumulative experience over millennia."

American Folklife Center, Library of Congress: The California Folk Music Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afccchtml/cowhome.html

"The California Folk Music Project, conceived and directed by Sidney Robertson Cowell was intended to be a representative collection of folk music being actively performed in Northern California. The project was one of the earliest attempts to document the performance of English-language and non-Black, non-American Indian, ethnic folk music in the United States." This website contains "sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a variety of European ethnic and English- and Spanish-speaking communities in Northern California. The collection comprises 35 hours of folk music recorded in twelve languages representing numerous ethnic groups and 185 musicians."

American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Digital Collection
http://content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/index.html

"This site provides an extensive digital collection of original photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures, complemented by essays written by anthropologists, historians, and teachers about both particular tribes and cross-cultural topics. These cultures have occupied, and in some cases still live in parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Maps are available that show traditional territories or reservation boundaries. The essays include bibliographies and links to related text and images as well as study questions that K-12 teachers may use as they develop curricula in their schools."

California Heritage Collection
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/

"The California Heritage Collection is an online archive of more than 30,000 images illustrating California's history and culture, from the collections of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. Selected from nearly two hundred individual collections, this unique resource uses the latest online archiving techniques to highlight the rich themes of California's history."

California Historical Society
http://www.californiahistoricalsociety.org/

The California Historical Society is a statewide membership-based organization. Its mission is to engage the public’s interest and participation in collecting, preserving, and presenting art, artifacts, and written materials relevant to the history of California and to support historical research, publication, and educational activities.

California History Online
http://www.californiahistory.net/

An annotated, scrolling timeline of the history of California. Beginning with a discussion of the physical landscape of the region, the timeline continues, covering the first inhabitants of the California, European exploration and Spanish colonization, Mexican California, the Gold Rush, the railroad era, and the Great Depression.

California Indian Library Collections
http://www.mip.berkeley.edu/cilc/bibs/toc.html

"The California Indian Library Collections (CILC) was funded with the aim of returning unique cultural materials to California's Native Americans and making the collections available to all citizens through their local libraries. Archived sound recordings, photographs, and textual materials (such as books, journal articles, unpublished manuscripts and field notes, many of which were gathered by Berkeley researchers in the early years of this century) have been duplicated and installed in twenty-one northern and central California libraries. Each county collection contains materials specific to the tribes within that county." This site includes links to tribal bibliographies and a gallery of baskets of Indians of northern and central California.

California State Archives
http://www.ss.ca.gov/archives/archives.htm

The California State Archives provides a repository for the state's permanent governmental records as well as other materials documenting California history. Collections that can be explored online include: California Constitutions, Spanish and Mexican land grants, family history resources, legislative records, the Robert F. Kennedy assassination investigation, oral histories, and photographs.

Hawaii State Archives
http://www.state.hi.us/dags/archives/

The Hawaii State Archives "is responsible for collecting, appraising, preserving, and making available to the public Hawaiian government records of enduring value. The primary collections consist of government records from the monarchy to the current legislative session, private collections of individuals and organizations, historical photographs, maps, and library collections specializing in Hawaiian history, culture, and Pacific voyages."

Hawaiian Historical Society
http://www.hawaiianhistory.org/

Founded in 1892, the Society is dedicated to preserving historical materials relating to Hawai‘i and the Pacific region and to publishing scholarly research on Hawaiian and Pacific history. In addition, the Society presents lectures and other programs, free to the public, on various aspects of Hawaiian history.

Historical Society of Southern California
http://www.socalhistory.org/

This website specializes in the history of Los Angeles, but there is also an excellent section of biographies of men and women who have made significant contributions to the history of Southern California.

HistoryLink
http://www.historylink.org/this_week/index.cfm

"An encyclopedic history of Seattle and nearby communities. Our site contains sourced essays, photo features and a detailed timeline of regional history. New info is added to our databases almost daily." The site also features maps and historical documents and anecdotal "people's history."

Honolulu Star-Bulletin: Hawaii Looking Back
http://starbulletin.com/specials/millennium/

Short history of Hawai`i; originally appeared in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1999.

Join California: Election History for the State of California
http://www.joincalifornia.com/

"JoinCalifornia started in 2005 and provides more than sixty years worth of polictical history for California candidates, districts, and parties." This site provides current election information as well as historical information about California politics, parties and laws.

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.

Oregon Historical Society
http://www.ohs.org/

"For over 120 years, the Oregon Historical Society has provided a place for history--a home for our heritage, our culture, our beginnings, and our future. The Programs of the Oregon Historical Society, while diverse, share a mission to extend the aims of the Society into the state of Oregon and engage its people through professional services, organizational affiliation, the coordination of educational information, projects and competitions, and the sponsoring of traditional arts communities and apprenticeships."

Oregon State Archives
http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/

The web site for the Oregon State Archives offers guides to state agency records and historical county records. It also provides research aids to adoption, census, land, military, naturalization, probate, and vital records.

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.

Social Issues Collection
http://content.lib.washington.edu/Socialweb/

"The Social Issues Collection is an ongoing database of historial images from the Western United States and the Pacific Northwest region. The collection covers political and social topics such as women's issues, labor and government, as well as ethnic groups."

Washington State Archives
http://www.secstate.wa.gov/archives/

The Washington State Archives includes the State Records Collection of government documents, a Historical Records Search with links to additional genealogical resources, and information about the five regional repositories.

Washington State Historical Society
http://www.washingtonhistory.org/wshs/index.htm

The Washington State Historical Society is a non-profit organization. "Founded in 1891 and now into its second century of service, the Washington State Historical Society is dedicated to collecting, preserving and vividly presenting Washington's rich and varied history. The Society is comprised of a family of museums and research centers, offering a variety of services to researchers, historians, scholars and the lifelong learner."