Homepage for Mt. Vernon Estate and Gardens, George Washington's Virginia estate, this site offers valuable sources for researching the life and home of the first U.S. President. An exhibit contains more than 50 images of furniture, art, documents, and other Mount Vernon household objects. Each image is accompanied by a 150-word description of the artifact and its location or significance to the estate. A virtual tour of Mt. Vernon's mansion takes visitors through every room with a photograph and 350-word description of the room and its furnishings. An archaeology section describes digs at eight sites on the estate, a 500-word description of a current excavation of Washington's distillery, and a 1500-word essay on the Mt. Vernon mansion's restoration beginning in 1858. An Educational Resources section offers a fifth-grade lesson plan, complete with trivia about Washington, excerpts from his Rules on Civility, and anecdotes from his military career and presidency; a 2000-word essay on Washington's attitude toward slavery and information on his slaves' lives, including links to a facsimile copy of Washington's 1798 slave census and 18 images of paintings and artifacts depicting the everyday lives of Mt. Vernon's slaves. This site is ideal for researching Washington's life and home, and it could also be useful for those studying material culture and archaeology.

President Thomas Jefferson worked on designing his estate, Monticello, throughout much of his adult life, drawing heavily on classical architecture as well as the French architecture he became acquainted with during his time in Paris in the 1780s. This website presents an interactive map of Monticello, at its height a 5,000 acre plantation—its buildings, fields, orchards, and slave quarters—providing a window into Jefferson's domestic life.

Visitors can click on one of more than 25 locations on the Plantation, and see a short explanation of that place's function, as well as a small selection of current and historical photographs and documents pertaining to that location, including some of Jefferson's original building plans. Visitors can then virtually move inside Monticello itself through a 3-D tour of Jefferson's home, accompanied by text highlighting the social function of each room.

Also offered are virtual tours of the house, highlighting domestic life at Monticello and Jefferson's relationship with farming and gardening. Each of these tours is accompanied by a useful video introducing these topics and providing other background information about Jefferson's life and work.

Don't let Guam be forgotten in your classroom! After all, it is one of only 16 non-self-governing territories worldwide that are recognized by the UN. As such, leaving Guam out of history is to ignore a rather remarkable political exception.

Guampedia offers a range of short articles on everything from architecture to World War II. These pages also feature relevant photographs and further resource listings. Additional sections offer basic facts on Guam (motto, population, etc.) and its major villages. Be sure to check out the history lesson plans to see if there's any ready-made content appropriate for you to introduce to your classroom.

Additional ways to explore include a selection of media collections including photographs, illustrations, soundbites, and video; MARC Publications, including issues of the Guam Recorder, lectures, and additional e-publications on topics such as archaeology and stonework; and traditional recipes.

These historical materials come from 15 Kentucky colleges, universities, libraries, and historical societies. There are nearly 8,000 photographs; 95 full-text books, manuscripts, and journals from 1784 to 1971; 94 oral histories; 78 issues of Mountain Life and Work from 1925-62; and 22 issues of Works Progress Administration in Kentucky: Narrative Reports.

Photographs include collections by Russell Lee, who documented health conditions resulting from coal industry practices; Roy Stryker, head of the New Deal Farm Security Administration photographic section; and others that provide images of cities, towns, schools, camps, and disappearing cultures. Oral histories address Supreme Court Justice Stanley F. Reed, Senator John Sherman Cooper, the Frontier Nursing Service, veterans, fiddlers, and the transition from farming to an industrial economy. Texts include Civil War diaries, religious tracts, speeches, correspondence, and scrapbooks. Documents cover a range of topics, including colonization societies, civil rights, education, railroads, feuding, the Kentucky Derby, Daniel Boone, and a personal recollection of Abraham Lincoln.