In conjunction with the National Park Service, Clemson University has digitized over 350,000 cultural heritage objects and 1.5 million pages of unpublished sources housed in over 20 national parks and historic sites. All images are high-resolution and downloadable.

Each park’s page contains a number of source collections, generally grouped by topic or time period. Open Parks Network allows users to find sources in a number of ways. Users may search by park, source collection, or keyword. For instance, the user can choose to see all collections and items from Andersonville National Historic Site by clicking on the park’s name.

Alternatively, users can navigate directly to a collection of Outer Banks Shipwrecks by browsing an overview of each park’s collections. Open Parks Network also features a map illustrating the number of sources from each geographical location that users can use to access sources. Each of these options are conveniently located in a single “Explore” tab.

The classroom utility of Open Parks Network’s sources varies widely. While the sources within some collections could be beneficial for classroom source analysis and research (e.g., the collection of Civil War Newspaper Illustrations on the Fort Sumter National Monument page), other collections would be of greater use to those with a specialized interest in a park’s operational history (e.g., the collection of Kings Mountain National Military Park Personnel). None of the sources come with any descriptive text, which can make it difficult to contextualize sources.

Instructors and students may find Open Parks Network useful for a variety of classroom activities, including using sources to encourage historical thinking about the past that the parks memorialize or about the parks themselves. This site might be of particular interest for teaching about the National Park Service, given its centennial anniversary in 2016.

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.

Children's Lives at Colonial London Town tells the stories of three 18th-century families who lived in the port town of London Town, MD. Funded by a Teaching American History (TAH) grant, Anne Arundel County Public School teachers created this interactive online storybook and complementary app in partnership with the Center for History Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Historic London Town and Gardens.

The storybook includes a three-chapter narrative exploring the lives of the Pierponts, a four-child, single-mother family running an ordinary (a public house) in 1709; the Hills, a middle-class young Quaker couple raising Mrs. Hill's five young siblings in 1739; and the Browns, 1762 tavernkeepers who owned several slaves, among them seven-year-old Jacob. Introductory sections explore the pre-colonial lives of Native peoples and the early days of colonization.

Each of more than 40 pages features images of primary sources, photographs of reenactors, and two to three paragraphs describing the everyday lives of these families. The stories look at how both parents and children (including enslaved children) ate, slept, dressed, worked, learned, played, and attended to their health. Questions throughout the text ask students to consider the information they read and develop questions about the past. Highlighted names and vocabulary invite readers to click to visit a glossary.

A slideshow gallery of images used in the storybook, an interactive map showing the locations of the three families' homes, and a timeline of events of both national and local London Town events from 1600 to 1800 support the storybook. Clicking on highlighted names and terms on the timeline takes visitors to related primary sources and articles off-site.

But how to use the storybook in the classroom? An Educators section orients teachers to the storybook and its supporting materials. A guide outlines the purpose and structure of the storybook, while the "Educator Resource" section offers more than 10 downloadable lesson plans and activities for 4th- through 5th-graders. Teachers can also review pre-reading and during-reading strategies for using the storybook, as well as strategies for writing prompted by it. Teachers can also follow links to sections of the Historic London Town and Gardens' website, including a 300-word introduction to London Town's history and information on London Town school tours.

To learn more about subjects covered in the storybook and to explore the sources that went into making it, see "Additional Websites and Places of Interest" for more than 25 links to websites focusing on Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania history and "Sources Used to Create This Book" for a bibliography of more than 30 books, primary sources, and websites.

A window into history tailored specifically for upper-elementary students, Children's Lives at Colonial London Town could make a compelling whiteboard read-along activity for teachers covering the colonial era. For students and teachers with smartphones and tablets, try the free app version and let students explore at their own pace.

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.

The Milwaukee Art Museum's collection includes more than 20,000 works of art ranging in date from antiquity to the present, and specializing in American decorative arts, German Expressionism, Haitian art, and American art after 1960. This website presents more than 200 pieces from the museum's collection. These works include paintings and sculptures, including several 20th-century works from Haiti; photographs, including Civil War-era portraits and masterpieces from the Great Depression era; prints and drawings primarily from French, Italian, German, and Flemish artists in the 17th-19th centuries; and a small collection of decorative arts, primarily furniture pieces from the early United States.

Beyond the website's Collection section, more artwork is on display in the Exhibitions section, which includes a selection of images from more than 25 current and past exhibitions. A highlight is the exhibit dedicated to the groundbreaking work of Milwaukee industrial designer Brooks Stevens. Here, visitors can view detailed images of some of his most famous designs, which include the Miller Brewing Company logo, the Evinrude outboard motor, and the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.

Take some time on this guide to all things West Virginia. This website offers a plethora of articles from "Abolitionism" to "John Zontini." To aid your search, you can sort through articles by topical category, alphabetical order, selecting "random article," or running a keyword search for specific interests. Your search will return media as well as text results, nicely sorted into separate categories. Articles are brief, but cross-referenced; and they also include citations and images, when available and appropriate.

The encyclopedia also includes larger sets of information and images referred to as exhibits. Topics include steamboats, John Henry, the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy, the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, coal mining, historic preservation, the Swiss community of Helvetia, the Greenbrier resort, and labor. A similar feature offers a handful of historical West Virginia maps.

Want something more interactive? Try the thematic 10-question quizzes, forums, or interactive maps and timelines.

This website provides free access to a variety of visual materials and "seeks to illustrate the unique role of visual images in American history." Clio is an educational organization developing American history projects with appeal to a wide audience, including students, educators, and researchers. This site aims to not only provide access to a variety of visual historical materials, such as photographs, illustrations, and material objects (namely quilts), but also "to promote visual literacy by exploring the variety of ways that images enhance our understanding of the past and challenge us to hone our interpretive skills."

The website is organized into three main sections. The first, "Visualizing America," includes two collections of modules, titled "Picturing the Past: Illustrated Histories and the American Imagination, 1840–1900," and "Quilts as Visual History." A second section, ”Photography Exhibits," includes three photography collections: one focusing on the work of Frances Benjamin Johnston, another on the work of the Allen Sisters (Mary and Frances Allen), and the Peter Palmquist Gallery. A third section, "Creating History," examines the figure of Lowell Thomas, who became one of America's best known journalists, as well as the media version and reality of Lawrence of Arabia.

An additional section concerning women's history and lives in the 21st century and second half of the 20th century is planned for 2013.

A valuable website to students and researchers alike, it suffers only slightly from a lack of search capabilities.

This exhibit features more than 65 objects from Native American cultures in North and South America. Beautifully displayed in 10 showcases, these objects address many aspects of American Indian life, such as identity, recreation, communication, dress, adornment, music, and dance. All images can be zoomed for detailed viewing and are accompanied by a brief description, information about Native cultures, and other facts. Some images are accompanied by related photographs. The "Containing Culture" case, for example, includes a Paviotso (Northern Paiute) carrying basket, c. 1900, make from willow shoots and leather and used by women to carry seed-foods or personal possessions on their backs. An accompanying undated photograph shows Kaibab Paiute women in Arizona using the baskets. Each case also includes a map locating the objects throughout the Americas, as well as an interactive activity that allows users to manipulate the objects onscreen—by placing instruments in "wind," "percussion," or "string" categories, for example.

More than 400 ceremonial and everyday objects representing 11 Native communities along the North Pacific Coast-from the Tlingit and Haida in the North to the Coast Salish and Makah in the South-form the core of this virtual exhibit. Each community's objects are presented in separate virtual galleries curated by community members. In this way, each group presents its own culture and history in a way meaningful to that group. The Coast Salish curators, for example, chose only objects used in daily life, such as baskets and mats, canoes and fishing implements, household items, and weaving materials, as the community values keeping ceremonial and religious practices private. The Gitxan curators, on the other hand, focus on spirits and spiritual healers, and have included doll figures, masks, amulets, and headdresses in their collection.

Objects from other communities include art implements, such as paintbrushes, musical instruments, body adornment worn during dances, and wooden carvings. The photographs of all objects are high-quality, and a zoom function enables detailed viewing.

These 685 items represent 27 current and former American Indian tribes of the Northern Great Plains and cover a period from 1870 to 1954. Most of the materials are photographs with identifying text. The collection also includes stereographs, ledger drawings, and other sketches.

Users can view three unique collections. The Barstow Ledger Drawing Collection offers 66 Crow and Gros Ventre drawings from the late 19th century. A portfolio entitled Blackfeet Indian Tipis, Design and Legend includes 26 works and an introductory essay. Another collection offers treaties with the Assiniboine, Blackfeet, and North Piegan tribes from 1874 and 1875.

Searching is available by subject, date, location, name, tribe, collection, and artist or photographer. This valuable site documents folkways, material culture, and the history of American Indians from the Northern Great Plains region.