Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE), a service of the Department of Education, categorizes more than 1,600 learning resources from the federal government by subject including history, language arts, math, and science.
Under the umbrella of History and Social Studies, U.S. History Topics are further subdivided thematically and chronologically.
The White House, home of President of the United States, provides historic photos, president and first lady biographies, historic images, and videos on the history of the White House and its occupants.
Oral histories, exhibits, historical photographs, senate biographies, essays, and statistics and facts from the Historical Office provide an overview and behind-the-scenes look at the U.S. Senate. From the caning of Charles Sumner in 1856 to the McCarthy hearings, from the impeachment of Richard Nixon to factual and statistical information, this collection offers a foundation for research into the history of American political institutions.
The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency for the federal courts. History of the Federal Judiciary includes background information about the court system, judicial legislation, federal courthouses, and oral histories. A biographical directory of judges since 1789 includes all federal courts.
Teaching Judicial History: Federal Trials and Great Debates in United States History provides in-depth instructional units with narrative and supporting documentation from The Sedition Act Trials to Bush v. Orleans Parish School Board and the Desegregation of New Orleans Schools.
Nineteen museums, nine research centers, and the National Zoo comprise the nation's largest museum complex and research organization. The Smithsonian home page links to each of the component museums, to online exhibitions and collections, and offers a daily discovery to explore.
Smithsonian Education provides teachers with searchable databases of resources, including the option to select resources aligned to state standards.
Lesson Plans are centered on history and culture with particular emphasis on grades K8.
The Smithsonian's Early Enrichment Center lists professional development programs that emphasize the use of museum collections to teach young children across the curriculum.
The National Park Service oversees a wealth of places and resources to visit and for hands-on and classroom instruction in American history.
For Teachers introduces educational materials focusing on history and culture available through the National Park Service.
Teaching with Historic Places offers lesson plans, classroom activities, and professional development opportunities to help educators bring places on the National Register of Historic Places into the classroom and to prepare for local field trips. Curriculum modules are based on national U.S. History Standards.
Teaching with Museum Collections is a guide to teaching history with material culture.
Teacher Resources for Archaeology show how to explore archaeology to bring the earliest history of North America alive.
Discover Our Shared Heritage lists America's historic places, alphabetically and state-by-state.
A Place for Kids and Teachers links to professional development opportunities for educators.
Traveling Trunks names hands-on artifacts and describes learning kits to borrow and/or purchase for classroom use.
Preserve America is a White House initiative. The goal is to unite the efforts of 11 federal agencies working to support community initiatives to develop management strategies and sound business practices to save and use America's cultural and natural heritage. The program offers grants to help communities develop preservation programs and encourages educators to involve students in learning about and using local history. Look for a Preserve America Community near you: almost 600 are designated from Florida to Alaska.
The Information Clearinghouse links to resources within federal agencies partnering in the Preserve America initiative.
Preserve America grants promote heritage tourism and the use of historic sites as educational and economic assets.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) holds more than 10 billion items addressing the social, economic, political, and cultural history of the U.S.
In the recent site redesign NARA created a new Teacher's Resources section. Check out the training page for videoconference and summer workshops.
Don't pass on their new page DocTeach, which offers access to thousands of primary source documents and activities based on them.
The previous version of this section is still available at Educators and Students, a gateway to online resources and professional development opportunities for teachers. Links to the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights with accompanying instructional materials are among the highlights.
Digital Vaults is an interactive resource enabling visitors to manipulate digitized archive holdings to create historical scrapbooks and narratives.
Visit Presidential Libraries is a gateway to the holdings, programs, and events of Presidential libraries across the country.
Regional Archives maps the locations of branches of the archives by state and territory and describes their holdings, events, and activities.
Or search NARA's catalog through the Archival Research Catalog (ARC). ARC offers approximately 78,000 digital images of governmental textual records, photographs, and maps. Materials date from the colonial period to the recent past. To access digitized materials only, check the box marked "Descriptions of Archival Materials linked to digital copies." A newer, more streamlined way to search is the Online Public Access search. Enter your keyword, and then select appropriate limitations (images, etc.) in the bar to the left of the search results.
If you would like to learn about your (or any other) region specifically, be sure to take a look at the physical archives and web resources provided by the NARA in various parts of the country. The following list links to each region's listing on teachinghistory.org.
This expansive archive of American history and culture features photographs, prints, motion pictures, manuscripts, printed books, pamphlets, maps, and sound recordings going back to roughly 1490. Currently this site includes more than 9 million digital items from more than 100 collections on subjects ranging from African American political pamphlets to California folk music, from baseball to the Civil War.
American Memory is a digital arm of the Library of Congress, consolidating written and spoken files, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience.
Teachers is an umbrella for lesson plans, library services, resources, and highlighted collections to facilitate classroom teaching and learning.
The loc.gov Wise Guide offers frequently-changing highlights and links to the Library's online materials.