In 1868, Laura Jernegan, six-year-old daughter of a whaling captain, put to sea with her parents and younger brother. This website, created by the Martha's Vineyard Museum, explores her family's four-year whaling expedition, focusing on Laura's own diary.

Two narratives ground the exhibit: "The Story of Whaling" and "Laura's Story." Each narrative is divided up into three sections—"Before the Voyage," "The Voyage" and "After the Voyage"—and consists of 14—15 individual "chapters," each a short essay of approximately 300—1600 words. "The Story of Whaling" describes the rise and fall of the whaling industry and the nature of a whaling voyage, including preparation and hiring crew.

"Laura's Story" narrates the voyage of the Roman, the ship on which Laura and her family set sail. The voyage included a stay in Hawaii, mutiny, and the Roman's sinking in the Arctic (everyone survived). "Laura's Story" also looks at the lives of Laura and her family before and after the voyage, as young children and as adults. Each essay include links to images, descriptions, and other sections of the website that clarify and enrich the text.

For Laura's own description of her time at sea, "Explore Laura's Journal" lets visitors browse her 43-page journal. Written in a child's bold handwriting, the journal is short and easy to read, and can be viewed in the original scans, as a text transcript, or with a magic lens feature that translates the writing into print as the mouse runs over a page.

Further background information supports the two narratives and Laura's journal, including:

• "About Whales," a mini-exhibit answering basic questions about six whale species;
• an interactive timeline reaching from 1774 to 1955, including both general world history events and whaling events;
• "Explore the Ship," a diagram of a whaling ship that visitors can click for information on crew positions and parts of the ship; and
• a "Map of Whaling."

This interactive world map lets visitors display features from six sets of information, turning each set on or off and overlaying them. The sets include the four routes of the Roman's journey, three typical whaling routes, posts and sites important to whaling, 1878 whaling grounds for four species, major ocean currents, and whale migration patterns for three species.

Finally, visitors can view zoomable photographs of 175 different whaling-related objects in "Artifacts," read the descriptions of 15 crew positions in "Meet the Crew," and browse 16 pieces of logbook art, 36 photos, and 53 whaling-related images in the "Picture Gallery." An A-to-Z glossary offers definitions for 180 historical and whaling terms. Visitors can also explore the biographies of five people, including all of the members of the Jernegan family and, in "More About," can read 10 more 1,000-3,000-word essays on subjects like race and whaling, women and whaling, and 19th-century children's literature.

In the "For Teachers" section, educators can download two units on whaling: a four-lesson unit for grades 1–3, or a six-lesson unit for 4–5. "For Further Study" features a bibliography of 75 books for children and adults and eight annotated links.

A thorough website centered around a very unique primary source—use it to invite young children into history through the voice of a peer!

Created by the Library of Virginia as part of its Virginia Memory project, this website lets visitors explore the events leading up to and immediately following Virginia's secession from the Union on April 17, 1861. Short essays and more than 200 primary sources, including newspaper articles, speeches, letters, prints and drawings, official documents, maps, and other materials, present the story from a variety of perspectives, including those of women, African Americans, and people both pro- and anti-secession.

The website is divided into six different sections, each providing a different way of approaching the content. “Virginians Decide” divides Virginian history from the beginning of 1860 to July 1861 into 12 chronological sections, covering events including the 1860 presidential election, the meeting of the Virginia Convention of 1861, the formation of West Virginia, and the entrance of Virginia into the Civil War. Each section features a 300–500-word essay introducing the topic, accompanied by 5–45 related primary sources, links to the biographies of related historical figures, and 1–3 more short essays looking at aspects of the topic in greater detail. “Explore” lets visitors search all of the site's primary sources by 11 themes (Business and Economics, Convention of 1861, Elections and Politics, Journalism, Making West Virginia, Military, Restored and Loyal Government, Secessionism, Slavery, Unionism, Women) and seven geographical regions.

Visitors can get to know more about the people in the sources in “People.” Forty 400–2,500-word biographies give overviews of the lives of journalists, members of the Convention of 1850–1851 and of 1861, members of the Wheeling Convention, politicians, ministers, escaped slaves, free black businessmen, writers, army officers, slave traders, and others. Each biography includes related primary sources and links to related biographies. “Timeline” lets visitors browse sources arranged on an interactive timeline covering 1849 to 1862, and “For Educators” includes four downloadable lesson plans (on John Brown and the Fugitive Slave Law).

Of special interest to educators is “Callie's Mailbag.” This section gathers together 22 letters sent to a young educated Virginian woman, daughter of a secession-sympathetic Campbell County family. Callie Anthony was in her early 20s when she received these letters, which date from Dec. 1859 to Jul. 1861 and come from relatives and friends, expressing a wide range of pro- and anti-secession views.

Scanned documents and images can be downloaded in high resolution, and transcripts of written and printed documents are also downloadable. A valuable site for anyone teaching Virginian Civil War history, or wanting to give students a closer look at tensions in a seceding state.

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.

This website boasts a growing collection of more than 38,000 photographs, lithographs, letters, cards, poems and other texts centering around Indiana history from the early 19th century to the present. The collection is especially strong in African American history in Indiana, with browseable collections on Madam C.J. Walker (1867–1919), a nationally renowned businesswoman and philanthropist, Flanner House, the first agency in Indianapolis devoted to meeting the social service needs of African Americans, and the Indianapolis Recorder, the longest continually operated African American newspaper in Indiana.

In addition to that of Madam C.J. Walker, there are collections of roughly 100 images each related to other notable Hoosiers. The website also contains a collection of more than 1,000 items related to President Lincoln, including portraits and busts of the president, as well as documents surrounding the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Other notable collections include one devoted to military history, several collections of images and portraits of Native Americans from the mid-19th century, and close to 200 historical maps of Indiana. All content is keyword searchable.

The Metal Trades Council Union alliance in Seattle shut down the shipyards on February 6, 1919, in hopes of forcing a promised pay increase following the strict price controls set during World War I. After the Metal Trades Council obtained the support of Seattle's Central Labor Alliance, more than 65,000 Seattle workers staged a sympathy walkout, creating what has come to be known as the first "general strike" in U.S. history, and laying the foundation for labor unrest in the nation's steel, coal, and meatpacking industries in the years that followed.

This website documents the history of this strike through a large collection of primary and secondary source materials.

A four-minute video introduction, containing original film footage from 1919, is a useful place to begin for those unfamiliar with Seattle's labor history.

The website also includes contemporary and more recent newspaper articles, including more than 180 articles from Seattle's major newspapers covering the February 1919 events; 15 oral histories; more than 30 photographs of labor activity in Seattle, prominent union members, and strike activities; as well as research reports on the strike by history students at the University of Washington.

On November 10, 1898, Wilmington, NC, experienced what has come to be known as the only coup d'etat in United States history, when white supremacist members of the Democratic Party overthrew the municipal government and killed anywhere between six and 100 African Americans in the city, which at that time had a large, thriving African American population supported by the biracial Republican Party.

This website narrates the history of this event, from the rising racial tensions surrounding the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments and court disputes over miscegenation and interracial marriage, through the contentious election politics of 1898 that pitted the Democratic Party, supported by white supremacists, against the Republican and Populist Parties that represented African American interests at the local level, and the riot on November 10, through the legacy of the riot in the months and years to come, including the rise of segregationist Jim Crow laws.

Each section is illustrated with links to primary sources, including political cartoons, newspaper clippings, laws, court cases, and photographs of prominent Wilmington African Americans.

The website also includes the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Report published in 2006 by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources' Wilmington Race Riot Commission, which includes maps, photographs, and other primary source materials, and a link to an interactive map allowing visitors to visualize the events of November 10, 1898.

In 1918, an influenza epidemic swept around the world, killing an estimated 50 million people—34 million more than died in World War I—and attacking more than one-fifth of the world's population. No part of the United States was spared, as people in both urban and rural areas, from densely populated cities on the East Coast to those living in the Alaskan wilderness experienced the disease. This website offers 16 documents and images documenting this crisis. These sources reveal that many aspects of daily life in the United States were affected by the epidemic. Visitors can see, for example, a photograph of a mail carrier in New York City wearing a protective mask, telegrams from Arizona and Oklahoma describing the cancellation of public meetings and the symptoms of patients, and the personal letter of a nurse to her friend describing conditions at various military bases. Visitors can also order reproductions of these documents.

This massive archive contains more than 84.5 million documents, more than 26 million of which are fully keyword searchable, from Washington State and local agencies. These documents include contracts, birth, marriage, military, naturalization, death, cemetery, and census records, land records and surveys, oaths of office, maps, photographs, power of attorney records, and date from the late 19th century to the present.

A detailed list of collections is available through the Collections section. Here, users will find detailed information on all record collections, including dates and counties available, and options to search by county or within sub-collections.

The casual user may want to begin with several browsable featured collections, which contain photographs from the Spokane city planning department, audio recordings of the Washington House of Representatives Committee Meetings, and 200 photographs of daily life in the Big Bend region of the Columbia Basin.

Useful for teachers and historical researchers interested in many aspects of life in the West, and those interested in genealogy with connections to Washington State.

This website presents nine "Digital Collections" containing more than 10,000 primary sources on many aspects of Wyoming's 19th and 20th-century history.

The Palen Collection contains more than 200 programs, news clippings, brochures, and photographs surrounding Cheyenne's Frontier Days and rodeos from around the state.

Those interested in the history of studio photography will be particularly interested in the close to 3,000 photographs from a studio in Laramie, WY, in the Ludvig Svenson collection.

The Richard Throssel collection contains more than 550 early 20th-century photographs of Native American life and culture.

Other highlights include a small collection of journals, manuscripts, photographs, and articles surrounding the life of writer Owen Wister and his travels in the West; close to 500 photographs and more than 4,000 documents relating to ranch life in Wyoming; and a collection of photographs of Roscoe Turner and the early history of aviation.

The website also presents two collections of research projects conducted by University of Wyoming undergraduates, as well as a collection entitled Digital Herbaria, which contains high-resolution photographs and data for 6,014 vascular plant specimens found in the Grand Teton National Park.

Teachers will be especially interested in the website's Teacher Resources section, which includes links to a substantial number of lesson plans emphasizing critical analysis of primary sources.