For Us the Living is a resource for teachers that engages high school students through online primary-source based learning modules. Produced for the National Cemetery Administration's Veterans Legacy Program, this site tells stories of men and women buried in Alexandria National Cemetery, and helps students connect these stories to larger themes in American history. Primary sources used include photographs, maps, legislation, diaries, letters, and video interviews with scholars.

The site offers five modules for teachers to choose from, the first of which serves as an introduction to the cemetery's history. The other four cover topics such as: African American soldiers and a Civil War era protest for equal rights, the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln’s assassination, commemoration of Confederates during Reconstruction, and recognition of women for their military service. Most of the modules focus on the cemetery’s early history (founded in 1862) although two modules reach into the post-war era. Each module is presented as a mystery to solve, a question to answer, or a puzzle to unravel. Students must use historical and critical thinking skills to  uncover each story. Each module ends with two optional digital activities, a historical inquiry assignment and a service-learning project, related to the module theme.

Teachers should first visit the “Teach” section which allows them to preview each module (including its primary sources, questions and activities), learn how to get started, and see how the site’s modules connect with curriculum standards. In order to access the modules for classroom use, teachers do have to create their own account, but the sign up process is fast, easy, and best of all, free! The account allows teachers to set up multiple classes, choose specific module(s) for each class, assign due dates, and view student submissions.

Part of a larger project involving 4 million pages of St. Louis court records dating between 1804 and 1875, this website was designed to preserve and make accessible the freedom lawsuits filed in the St. Louis Circuit Court. In January 2001, the freedom suits brought by Dred Scott and his wife Harriet in 1846 became the first cases to go online. There are now more than 280 freedom suits are available. These case files consist of legal petitions for freedom by people of color originally filed in St. Louis courts between 1814 and 1860. They make up the largest corpus of freedom suits currently available to researchers in the United States. The images of original handwritten documents in which black men, women, and children petitioned the courts for freedom offers a glimpse at what some argue was the beginning of America's civil rights movement.

The short Macromedia Flash film "Freedom Suits" offers a glimpse into the pursuit of freedom by African Americans in St. Louis during the 19th century. This online archive will help researchers understand the length of enslaved African American's struggles and the historical significance of the lawsuits.

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) serves as a portal to the digital collections of more then 40 state, regional, and online-only libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural institutions. Created to strengthen access to public resources and to "create novel environments for learning, tools for discovery, and engaging apps," the DPLA is an invaluable first stop for teachers and students looking for primary sources, particularly regional history sources.

Visitors to the website can search the more than 4,500,000 objects in the collections of participating institutions using keywords, returning results they can filter by format, owning institution, partner, date, language, location, and subject. Clicking on an object brings up detailed metadata, including creator, date of creation, and a description of the object, as well as a link to its original location online. Visitors who create a free account can save their search results, make them private or public, and share them via Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Visitors can also browse objects on a map or timeline—a fantastic way to prompt thinking about how primary sources are located in time and space. The timeline stretches from 1000 BCE to the present. (Note that zooming into the map returns finer results.) In addition, more than eight virtual exhibits demonstrate how DPLA sources can be curated to tell stories about themes and events.

The DPLA's API (application programming interface) allows visitors with the know-how to create apps drawing on the DPLA's collections. An eclectic set of more than 10 apps lets visitors browse DPLA's search results as a "river of images," discover primary sources related to their Zotero bibliographies, and more.

A fantastic starting point for anyone looking for primary sources, teachers can feel confident pointing students towards the DPLA to begin research projects or turning to the DPLA themselves to find resources to support lesson plans.

The private organization behind this website is in the process of digitizing millions of records from the Lincoln Administration (March 4, 1861, through April 15, 1865), drawing from collections at the National Archives; the State Treasury, Justice, and War Departments; and other federal offices and agencies.

These records include pardon case files, applications for Federal jobs, the papers of Generals Ambrose Burnside and Henry Halleck, records on the capture of Jefferson Davis and the John Surratt trial, and numerous telegrams and letters about all aspects of Presidential business, as well as maps, photographs, and newspaper articles.

Though the majority of these records are accessible by subscription only ($150/year for individuals, more for school districts and libraries), a few are freely available at the website: thumbnails of 35 photographs (most available in higher quality elsewhere), and roughly 50 political cartoons (too small to read).

More useful for the non-subscriber is the inclusion of 100-200 word descriptions of many of the newspaper publications included in the archive, as well as video footage of several scholarly conferences and presentations about Lincoln.

An interactive timeline of Lincoln's entire life is also included, interspersed with video footage of scholars discussing important events, as well as staged audio recordings of several of Lincoln's letters and speeches, such as a letter he wrote to Mary Owens in 1837 before she broke off their courtship.

For teachers, the website presents a list of 20 links to outside lesson plans covering many themes in Lincoln's life and Presidency.

Internment experiences of Americans and Canadians of Japanese heritage in the Northwest during World War II are documented in this site, which features an exhibit that "tells the story of Seattle's Japanese American community in the spring and summer of 1942 and their four month sojourn at the Puyallup Assembly Center known as 'Camp Harmony.'" The internment camp section furnishes nearly 150 primary documents--including 12 issues of the "Camp Harmony Newsletter," 16 government documents, ten letters, 39 photographs, 24 drawings, a scrapbook, 20 newspaper clippings, and a 7,500-word chapter from the book Nisei Daughter that describes camp life. The site also provides archival guides and inventories for 21 University of Washington Library manuscript holdings relating to the internment and for 21 related collections; a 46-title bibliography for further reading; and additional information and documents related to Japanese Canadian internment. Valuable for those studying the wartime experiences and culture of interned Japanese Americans.

This website explores the vaccination process from 900 CE to the present day. Tracing humanity's earliest known observations about disease transmission and immunity up to modern vaccination programs, the website includes articles, primary sources, and interactive activities.

Most attractive to educators will be the "Gallery" section. Browse more than 550 primary sources related to disease and vaccination, including pamphlets, photographs, artifacts, and more, as well as 90 videos. For easier browsing, filter the sources by topic, media type, or time period.

History teachers will also appreciate the "Activities" section. Seven interactive diagrams illustrate scientific and historical concepts, including herd immunity, how vaccinations work and how they are made, and changes in required vaccines over time. "Pioneer Breakthroughs," an interactive quiz, tests players' knowledge of vaccine-related discoveries, and "The Scientific Method" walks players through the steps in identifying the source of a disease outbreak and containing it. "Illsville," an online game, challenges players to keep the population of a town healthy from 1600 through the present day.

The site also includes an interactive timeline featuring images and short synopses of events from 900 CE to the present. View all of the events, or filter them by topic.

A database of essays in "Articles" covers more than 50 topics in the categories "Vaccine Science," "History and Society," "Vaccine Information," "Vaccine-preventable Diseases," and "Common Questions."

Note the four lesson plans in the "Educators" section. Spanish-language versions of site content are available as well.