A project of the Library of Virginia, this website makes many of the library's resources available to the public in digital form. Most resources in its digital collections relate to Virginia history, making this a treasure house for educators teaching Virginia state history.

"Digital Collections" contains the bulk of the site's content. More than 70 collections document aspects of Virginian life and politics from the colonial era to the present day, and include photographs, maps, broadsides, newspaper articles, letters, artwork, posters, official documents and records, archived political websites, and many other types of primary sources.

Topics include, but are far from limited to, modern Virgina politics and elections; the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting; World War II photographs; Works Project Administration oral histories; the 1939 World's Fair; World War I veterans and posters; the sinking of the Titanic; stereographs; the Richmond Planet, a 19th-century African American paper; Civil War maps; official documents related to Civil War veterans; religious petitions from 1774 to 1802; letters to the Virginia governor from 1776 to 1784; Dunmore's War; and official documents from the Revolutionary War. Collections can be browsed by topic and title, and are internally searchable using keywords and other filtering tools.

Other features on the site include the "Reading Room," "Exhibitions," and "Online Classroom." "Reading Room" lets visitors explore a primary source for each day in Virginia history or browse a timeline of Virginia history. There are eight essays on unusual sources in the library's collection as well as on new finds in the library's blog, "Out of the Box."

"Exhibitions" preserves 25 exhibits on Virginia history topics that accompany physical exhibitions at the library. "Online Classroom" orients teachers to the site with a short "Guide for Educators," suggesting possible uses for the website's resources, and offers four source analysis sheets and 30 Virginia-history-related lesson plans, all downloadable as .pdfs. The section also highlights two online exhibits designed to be particularly useful to teachers: "Shaping the Constitution," chronicling Virginians' contributions to the founding of the country, and "Union or Secession?", which uses primary sources to explore the months leading up to Virginia's secession in the Civil War.

An invaluable resource for educators covering Virginia state history, this website should also be of use to teachers covering the colonial period, the American Revolution, and the Civil War generally, among other topics.

The Presidential Timeline curates and presents primary sources drawn from twelve Presidential Libraries and Museums, institutions housing and presenting archival materials for the presidents from Herbert Hoover to Bill Clinton. Under "Interactive Timeline," you can choose any of the 12 presidents—Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, or William Jefferson Clinton—and explore his life.

Timelines consist of at least two sections: "Early Life and Career" and "Presidency." All timelines except Roosevelt's, Kennedy's, and Clinton's also include a "Post-Presidency" section. Marks on the timeline indicate events of interest in the president's life and career; click on a mark to read a brief summary of the event, and to view primary sources (a + sign in the mark indicates primary sources are available).

Browse "Exhibits," also under "Interactive Timeline," for more than 30 collections of short essays, accompanied by 2–6 primary sources per essay, covering major events and topics related to the presidents' lives and careers. Topics covered stretch from "The Stock Market Crash, October 1929" to "William J. Clinton and the Supreme Court, 1993-2001."

Try the "Gallery" to search more than 1,500 primary sources (including artifacts, maps and charts, video, photographs, sounds recordings, and documents) by keyword, library of origin, date, or source type.

The "Educators" section includes 14 ready-to-go activities, on topics ranging from Pearl Harbor to the Iran Hostage Crisis to Bill Clinton's visit to Little Rock Central High School. Students and teachers can view pre-selected primary sources online in each activity, with suggested rubrics, applicable standards, and links to related sources also included. "Resources" links out to 16 websites recommended for history and primary sources, education, and technology, while "Multimedia" rounds up more than 50 audio and video primary source clips for download.

If you can't access the interactive Flash version of the timeline, try the HTML "Text Version" that includes the same primary sources.

The Museum of Broadcast Communications is dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making accessible historical and contemporary radio and television content, as well as artifacts and images documenting the history of broadcasting. To that end, it has amassed a collection of more than 25,000 television programs, 5,000 radio programs, and 12,000 commercials totaling close to 100,000 hours, as well as 1,800 objects and artifacts and 3,500 images from broadcasting history—all of which is available at its Chicago, IL location.

This website presents the more than 7,000 programs and commercials that have been digitized, as well as the entire collection of images, and selected artifacts. These materials include radio programs dating to the 1920s and television programming from the 1940s to the present. All materials are keyword searchable and browseable by select categories.

Those interested in the history of advertising, for example, can browse commercials by 23 categories, including automotive, alcoholic drinks, cosmetics, and leisure and hobbies. Radio and TV can both be browsed by program type, such as adventure, drama, dance, soap opera, and news. Images include headshots, publicity photos, scenes from the sets of television programs, and much more. Users must complete a simple registration process before searching the collections.

Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama have delivered 214 State of the Union addresses, some delivered orally and many more only written. This website makes the full text of all addresses available and fully searchable, and has done some innovative work text-mining these speeches to examine "changes in the language of the State of the Union address over the past 200 years."

A good place to begin is the website's Essay section, which gives a brief history of the State of the Union address, and describes some of the project's most interesting findings. The website's most prominent feature is a series of graphical representations of the most frequently used words in each address, which allows users to compare those words to those of any other speech.

Another tool allows users to compare the usage of two words in all addresses delivered. Comparing "war" and "peace," for example, reveals that these words have been used in 206 of the addresses, and that the word "war" alone has been used more than 2,600 times, compared to 1,821 usages for "peace."

Established by Ronald Reagan, the Reagan Foundation preserves Presidential history and is "dedicated to the promotion of individual liberty, economic opportunity, global democracy, and national pride." Its online presence provides both primary and secondary sources on the life and presidency of Reagan.

Visitors can follow a timeline of Reagan's life in Life and Times, and read five short essays (800–1,000 words) on his domestic, foreign, and economic polices, Mikhail Gorbachev, and "Reagan the Man" in The Presidency. Search or browse Reagan's speeches, with both transcripts and video recordings and search or browse quotes drawn from his speaking in Reagan Quotes and Speeches. The entries of his White House Diary from 1981–1989 may also be browsed, and a separate subsection on Nancy Reagan provides a timeline of her life and brief essays on her relationship with Ronald Reagan and her political causes.

The Reagan Foundation's Archives make only a fraction of their holdings available online. However, visitors can access fast facts on Reagan and his presidency; browse a selection of photos of the President and the First Lady, organized by topic; or search or browse (by month) the Public Papers of President Ronald W. Reagan, which includes statements, speeches, and papers released by the Office of the Press from 1981–1989.

The Archives' For Educators section includes several document-based lesson plans, as well as curriculum based on current museum exhibits.

Useful for educators looking for both introductory material to Reagan and his presidency and more specific primary sources.

The largest public archive of Ulysses S. Grant correspondence to date, the collection includes letters, research notes, artifacts, photographs, and memorabilia. Topics cover Grant's childhood, military career, and experiences in the Civil War through his presidency and post-White House years.

The bulk of the collection is made up of 31 full-text searchable, digitized volumes of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant. Edited by John Y. Simon, these volumes comprise thousands of letters spanning from 1837, just before Grant left for the Military Academy at West Point, to his death in 1885. The volumes also contain photographs, a chronology of the correspondence, and annotations.

In addition to the extensive Papers, the collection provides a sampling of digitized material from the U.S. Grant Association, including 14 multi-page compilations and 11 political cartoons from sources such as Harper's Weekly and Puck. Items include detailed, linked metadata to assist in tracking source provenance and connecting to related sources. Additionally, all items are keyword searchable and can be browsed by format, date, or title.

This website provides access to more than 5,700 documents surrounding Wilson and Wilson's family's personal life and work, including letters, speeches, notes, political cartoons, newspaper articles, and personal papers. All documents are keyword searchable and browseable by several topics, including debate, health, League of Nations, Paris Peace Conference, sport, and World War I. Much of Wilson's personal correspondence is included here, documenting his discussions with correspondents such as his wives Ellen Axson Wilson and Edith Bolling Wilson, and personal aide Cary Grayson. Featured documents include several of Wilson's most famous speeches: "Peace Without Victory" on the eve of World War I, "Fourteen Points for Peace," and "Women's Suffrage Amendment" in 1918. Useful both for those interested in Wilson's life and work, as well as those interested in early 20th-century U.S. political and social history, and foreign policy.

This collection presents digitized images of approximately 27,000 documents, the largest collection of original Jefferson documents in the world. Includes correspondence, commonplace books, financial account books, and manuscript volumes--approximately 83,000 images. It is organized chronologically and is searchable by keyword. Regrettably, the documents are presented as page images--no transcribed text is available. Reading the handwriting online in this way is slow and difficult.

This site exhibits a selection of material relating to Gerald Ford's presidency. The site provides a 2,500-word biography of the former president and 800 words on his wife, Betty, as well as 230 photographs of their pre-presidential lives. More than 120 photographs of Ford in office range in subject from family pets to the Nixon pardon. A sample of 15 facsimile documents about Vietnam represents a larger collection that has recently been declassified.

Other documents about Vietnam include General Fred C. Weyland's Vietnam assessment memo of April 1975, eight memoranda (4-7 pages) on conversations about the War, nine National Security Council meeting minutes (7-30 pages), and 14 photos of Ford and others in meetings about Vietnam. There are 41 National Security Study memos and 83 National Security Decision memos available on topics such as Israeli military requirements, the classification of nuclear safeguards, and U.S. policy for Antarctica. A collection of 20 items from Ford's 1976 campaign for president includes sheet music for his campaign theme song. Of the 40 Ford speeches and writings from 1970-2000 collected here, three are available as audio.

The site is searchable by subject and easy to navigate. It is a useful resource for research on Ford, the Vietnam War, and the presidency.

This collection of essays about the history of the U.S. Senate begins with a brief overview (900 words). More than 140 "historical minutes" (300 words) discuss interesting events in the Senate from 1789 to 1980. Events include the caning of Charles Sumner in 1856, the 1914 ban on smoking in the Senate chamber, and a 1935 Huey Long filibuster. The complete texts of 15 oral histories, of 40 to 700 pages, of retired senators and Senate staff members are available and 15 others may be ordered. The oral histories cover 1910 to 1984 and deal with a wide range of issues, including the desegregation of the staff, the McCarthy hearings, preparations to impeach Nixon, rhetorical rules of debate, and the impact of computers on the work of the senate. Staff members include pages, the Sergeant at Arms, aides, administrative assistants, and the first African-American Government Documents Clerk. A collection of 26 essays (500 to 3000 words) discuss Senate procedure, leadership, officers of the Senate, and general information, such as the development of the oath of office. Other essays include 2,400 words on the president pro-tempore and a 1,300 word essay on the 1959 committee, chaired by John F. Kennedy, that designated the five most outstanding senators in American history.

The site also includes a section of frequently asked questions about the Senate and links to a directory that provides a 150-word biography of every senator and vice president as well as many congress people and staff members. Statistics about majority and minority leaders and the practice of switching parties are also provided. The minutes of Senate Republican Conferences from 1911 to 1964 and Senate Democratic Conferences from 1903 to 1964 are available in their entirety. Visitors may also read the full texts of eight lectures given by statesmen, such as George Bush and Senator Robert C. Byrd as part of the Leaders Lectures series established in 1988 by Trent Lott. The site is easy to navigate and will be useful for research in the history of American political institutions.