United States History

Sub-headings:

African-American History

American West

Historical Documents

Native American History

Presidents

United States Historical Maps

United States History by Era

United States History by Region

Wars

State Archives

Online indexes to U.S. state archives collections.

Resources in this category:

About.com: American History
http://americanhistory.about.com/

An Internet guide to American history, with feature articles, Website links, and discussion forums. Topics covered include the Civil War, colonial America, government, World War II, and biographies. While aimed primarily at middle and high school students, history buffs of all ages will find useful information here.

American Currency Exhibit
http://www.frbsf.org/currency/index.html

"Money hasn't always looked like it does today. Explore the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco's American Currency Exhibit online and watch history come alive as you step back in time to our nation's beginning. Learn how our country's rich history is closely tied with our currency. Discover the role the Federal Reserve has played--and continues to play--in that history. Select Tour Showcase of Bills to examine highlights from the collection. Select Tour Exhibit by Era to navigate through historical eras, beginning with the Colonial struggle for independence. Your mode of transportation through history ranges from the Colonial horse to the global economy's jet airplane. As you follow the transportation revolution and the evolution of American currency, you'll learn how these events not only reflect our history, but help shape it."

The American Experience
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/

"The American Experience Online premiered in November of 1995 and has since won accolades from viewers and critics alike. To date The American Experience Online has produced over 25 features sites," which are based on films displayed on PBS television. Among the features are the "D-Day, Guts and Glory, Influenza 1918, and the Presidents." Each feature details the film, a timeline of that period in history, maps, people and events, and includes a teacher's guide.

American Memory: Historical Collections for the National Digital Library
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Multimedia collections of historical digitized documents, photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and text from the Library of Congress's Americana collections. May be browsed by title/topic/format or searched via engine.

American Revolution
http://www.ipl.org/div/pf/entry/78523

This IPL pathfinder includes online and print resources related to the American Revolution. Here you will also find popular locations in public and academic libraries where more resources might be found.

American Studies Crossroads Project
http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/

"Provide[s] a rich resource in American Studies which includes a listing of: American Studies Programs; American Studies Curricula; Subject Maps to Fields of American Studies; Key American Studies Internet Sites; International American Studies; New Media and Technologies in American Studies."

American Women's History: A Research Guide
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~kmiddlet/history/women.html

"American Women's History is designed to assist serious researchers, such as history professors, independent scholars, graduate students, and possibly upper-division undergraduates. Librarians who assist these researchers may also want to become familiar with the guide. American Women's History provides citations to print and Internet reference sources, as well as to selected large primary source collections. The guide also provides information about the tools researchers can use to find additional books, articles, dissertations, and primary sources."

Arirang: An Interactive Classroom on the Korean American Experience
http://arirangeducation.com/main/

This resource presents an overview of the history of Korean Americans. It includes a timeline and lesson plans suitable for high school students.

Asian-Nation
http://www.asian-nation.org/

This site dedicates itself to "Exploring the historical, political, social, economic, and cultural elements and issues that make up today's Asian American community, 'Asian-Nation' provides provocative, useful, and interactive content about the Asian American community, concisely but comprehensively -- in-depth research, a few statistics, and a casual, personal style. You can think of it as an online version of 'Asian Americans 101' -- something that everyone can learn from and use."

Bikini Atoll
http://www.bikiniatoll.com/

This site is devoted to the history of the Bikini Atoll, and the efforts of its people to resettle it. It includes information on its history, the resettlement program, and a diving and tourism program the Bikini people have set up to try and reclaim their island.

A Biography of America
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/

A companion Web site to the video series of the same name, this covers site covers the history of the United States from pre-Columbian civilizations to the present. The series is divided into 26 programs.
"For each program you'll find an interactive feature related to the subject or the time period of the program. In addition, you'll find a listing of key events of the period, a map relevant to the period, the transcript of the video program, and a "Webography" - a set of annotated web links.

Center for the Study of Intelligence
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

CSI is a governmental organization charged with researching the history of the American intelligence community. Their site includes a variety of online texts and documents, most covering the period of the Cold War.

Digital Archive of American Architecture
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/contents.html

Extensive site providing timelines and chronologies of American architecture from the 17th century onward. Includes images of buildings, biographies of architects, lists of exemplary buildings and types, and a visual glossary of styles.

Digital History
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/

"An interactive, multimedia history of the United States from the Revolution to the present."

EASE History
http://www.easehistory.org/

This site allows users to "learn about US History through the prism of US presidential campaign ads, better understand the complexities of campaign issues and their historical context by looking at historical events, and explore the meanings of core values." Features historical videos and photographs, including presidential campaign videos.

Educator's Learning Page of the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/

Through a variety of Educators' Programs, the Library of Congress Learning Page shows educators how they can use American Memory resources in the classroom.

Emergence of Advertising in America
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa/

"EAA presents over 9,000 images that illustrate the rise of consumer culture, especially after the American Civil War, and the birth of a professionalized advertising industry in the United States. The images are drawn from over a dozen separate collections in the Hartman Center and Duke's Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The project organizes the materials into eleven categories. In most of those categories the images shown represent only a portion of a particular collection or series. For EAA we selected representative images, including primarily items or pages that are especially informative and visually interesting."

Famous Trials
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/ftrials.htm

Offers accounts of many of the most famous trials in world and American legal history, such as the Salem witchcraft trials, the Rosenbergs case, the Scopes "Monkey" trial, the Amistad affair, and the O.J. Simpson Trial among others. Includes articles , court records, and other official documents.

From Revolution to Reconstruction
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/

"A Hypertext on American History from the colonial period until Modern Times." A collection of documents, biographies, essays and outlines covering American History (especially strong from the American Revolution until Reconstruction.) The large outlines are taken in great portion from USIA publications. The site provides a search function.

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/

The Gilder Lehrman Institute's website offers free online resources related to the political and social history of the United States from 1493 to the present. Their vast database presents thousands of historical documents for searching. Designed for students, teachers and historians. Includes primary source documents, lesson plans and electronic exhibitions, as well as printed calendars, posters and document booklets.

Historic American Sheet Music Project
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hasm/

"The Historic American Sheet Music Project provides access to digital images of 3,042 pieces from the collection, published in America between 1850 and 1920."

Historic Asylums of America
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~asylums/

This web site catalogs historic state hospitals founded in the latter half of the 19th century, focusing on--but not limited to--facilities built on the "Kirkbride plan." Included are hospitals still in operation, hospitals still standing though closed, and those that no longer physically exist. Most of the pages include photographs or images from postcards.

History in Song
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/index.html

The editor of this site says, "These pages of (mostly) song lyrics owe their existence to an American Studies class taught by Dr. Heiner Bus at Johannes-Gutenberg- University, Mainz, Germany in the mid-1970s. While going through my collected papers these days, I was struck by the sheer number of song lyrics pertaining to the various stages of American history which had been collected by Dr. Bus and ourselves (his students) at that time -- and since a lot of these papers became yellowed and faded over the last 20 years, I decided to preserve them, transcribe them into HTML-format and eventually include them all on these pages." The contents of this site is organized by "SUBJECT" and "SONGS BY INDIVIDUAL SONGWRITERS/ARTISTS."

History Matters
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/

"Designed for high school and college teachers of U.S. History survey courses, this site serves as a gateway to Web resources and offers unique teaching materials, first-person primary documents and threaded discussions on teaching U.S. history. We emphasize materials that focus on the lives of ordinary Americans and actively involve students in analyzing and interpreting evidence. Currently, most of the materials cover the period 1876 to 1946."

History Through Deaf Eyes
http://depts.gallaudet.edu/deafeyes/

This presents history about Deaf Americans.

History Travel.com
http://www.historytravel.com/

An online guide to historical sites, destinations and hotels in the United States, including travel tips and weekly feature destinations organized by historical topics. Browse by desination or search.

Jazz: A Film by Ken Burns
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/

The online counterpart to Ken Burns' documentary Jazz includes extensive biographical profiles and discographies of major jazz musicians, a chronology of the development of jazz, essays about jazz and its place in American culture, and audio clips of jazz compositions.

National Museum of American Jewish History
http://www.nmajh.org/

The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadephia offers a view of "American Jews in the social, cultural, economic and political life" of the United States. View descriptions and photographs of current and past exhibits or check out the site's "three side-by-side timelines of American history, American Jewish history, and World Jewish history."

Living the Legacy: The Women's Rights Movement 1848 - 1999
http://www.legacy98.org/

Living the Legacy contains numerous articles about the history of the women's movement and current issues, a timeline, and list of relevant women's organizations. The website was created by the National Women's History Project, an educational nonprofit organization, for the 150th anniversary of the Women's Rights Movement.

National Archive--Our Documents
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/

From the founding fathers to civil rights, see "100 milestone documents" in the history of the United States. View the original documents and transcripts or download free .pdf files (you will need Adobe Acrobat).

National Gallery of the Spoken Word
http://www.ngsw.org/

"The NGSW is designed as an expansive repository of aural resources." It contains "a significant, fully searchable, online database of spoken word collections that span the 20th century". Oral history collections include News and Newsmakers, 20th Century Inventors and Scientists, American Life, Chicago Neighborhoods, Folk Life and Lore, History and Politics Out Loud, Supreme Court Decisions, and World War II.

The National Portrait Gallery
http://www.npg.si.edu/

This reference tool helps find useful images - painting, sculpture, and photography - of people of historical interest in the United States. The images give a good representation of what presidents and other historical figures actually looked like, along with short citations of historical note. Look for ongoing exhibits of social history, portraits of presidents, and historical documentation of American history.

North By South
http://northbysouth.kenyon.edu/1998/index.htm

North by South is the result of a National Endowment for the Humanities seminar at Kenyon College. "This web page is the final product of a year long seminar researching the migration of African Americans from south to north. This seminar was the first part of a three year process to explore the reasoning, experiences, and contributions African Americans made to the greater community as they moved throughout the country." Illustrated text essays and bibliographies explore topics such as music, art, health, education, and death in African American culture at locations both North and South. Includes active message board.

The Star-Spangled Banner
http://americanhistory.si.edu/ssb/opening.html

A site dedicated the actual flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that became the U.S. national anthem. The site includes information on the making of the flag and efforts to preserve it. It also traces the history of the U.S. flag as a patriotic symbol. Classroom resources and ideas for teachers accompany the material presented here.

The Tax History Project
http://www.taxhistory.org/

"Welcome to the Tax History Project, established by Tax Analysts in 1995 to provide scholars, policymakers, students, the media, and citizens with information about the history of American taxation. The project pursues its mission through a program of web-based documentary publication and original historical research." This web site includes features such as the Tax History Museum and Presidential Tax Returns.

ThisNation.com
http://www.thisnation.com/

ThisNation.com offers a free online American government & politics "textbook," a historical & political documents archive and other resources for students, teachers and those generally interested in "this nation." The site includes a library of such items as the text of presidential inaugural addresses, important documents in US political history--i.e. the Constitution, Amendments, important Supreme Court decisions--and image and sound files of important political figures. Site contains a search function.

United States Historical Census Data Browser
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/census/

"The data presented here describe the people and the economy of the US for each state and county from 1790 to 1970." Each decade is searchable by various demographic and economic characteristics.

The Urban Landscape: Digital Images Access Project
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/diap/

"The Urban Landscape Digital Image Access Project is a database of images from various collections held by the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University. The database contains 1000 images pertaining to the theme "The Urban Landscape," from fourteen different collections."

Women in American History
http://www.britannica.com/women/

An encyclopedia exploring the history, social conditions, and contributions of women in the United States. This resource can be explored in several ways. A series of timelines provides brief coverage of important events and people, beginning in the 1600's and continuing to the present day. There are also 2 sets of articles: biographies covering notable women in all spheres of activity, and subject-based articles covering organizations, legal cases and concepts, events, and institutions. The Media Gallery has video and audio clips (including video footage of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller demonstrating how Keller learned to speak), and "In Her Own Words" contains some of the primary documents important in American women's history. A bibliography of recommending reading materials and a study guide for use by teachers are also included. This site's comprehensive, multicultural focus make it an important American history resource.