Texts about the Americas produced in Europe from the 15th through the 19th centuries are examined in this well-organized online exhibit. Over 100 images of printed texts, drawings, artwork, and maps from published and unpublished sources are arranged into six thematic categories. Categories are named: "Promotion and Possession," "Viewers and the Viewed," "Print and Native Cultures," "Religion and Print," "New World Lands in Print," and "Colonial Fictions, Colonial Histories."

Five scholarly essays (5,000 to 7,000 words each) contextualize the documents. A bibliography and list of links accompany the presentation. A visually attractive, thoughtfully arranged site that explores connections between colonization and representation.

P. T. Barnum's American Museum burned down under mysterious circumstances in 1865 after nearly a quarter century of patronage. The original museum tried both to entertain and educate with exhibits on natural history, American history, and reform efforts along with attractions of a sensational nature. With the exception of African Americans, who were barred from entry until the Civil War, New Yorkers of diverse ethnic, gender, and class identities mingled in the museum's shared cultural space.

Visitors to this website can explore an interactive 3D recreation of the museum or an archive of images, documents, accounts, and essays on 16 original Barnum exhibits, including the Fejee mermaid; Joice Heth, a former slave advertised as George Washington's nursemaid; "Swedish Nightingale" Jenny Lind; John Brown; Jefferson Davis; the Lincoln assassination; the Civil War in New York; and phrenology. The website allows visitors to immerse themselves in the popular culture of Barnum's era.

Representing the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, this archive features records for more than 660,000 artifacts, ranging from sources worldwide.

Visitors may browse objects by featured collection or theme (themes include California/Nevada baskets, animals, faces, feathers, hair and makeup, and more) or by collection highlights (featuring notable artifacts divided into sections by geography). Under "Highlights by Section," visitors may also choose "Physical Anthropology" to explore the museum's collection of human and primate remains. A downloadable PDF (30 pages) introduces this section. (Note: access to the searchable database for the physical anthropology collection was not available at the time of this review.)

Visitors may search the collections by keyword, object name/description, museum object number, period, place name, culture, maker, donor, and material/technique. Individual object records may include culture, country of origin, date created, media and techniques used, a two- to three-sentence description, and enlargeable images (if available).

Click "Add to My Finds" on an object's record page to add an object to a customizable list of bookmarked items, accessed by clicking the "My Finds" tab at the top right of the page. Collections of "finds" may be rearranged by dragging and dropping; click "Save/Share My Finds" to store a collection at a unique URL that may be revisited later and shared with others.

This is a useful site for exploring material culture. U.S. history teachers will find the Native American artifacts recovered on archaeological and ethnographic collecting expeditions particularly relevant. The lack of substantial annotations may make some artifacts difficult to contextualize. (Note that the museum specifically allows teachers to use images from the collection in their classrooms or on nonprofit educational websites.)

American Turning Point is an online companion to a Virginia Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War Commission exhibit examining the events and impact of the Civil War within the state of Virginia. The travel schedule may permit you to plan a field trip for your class to see the physical exhibit. If not, explore the website (or visit and use the website to reinforce the experience).

Characters gives faces to some of the people who lived through the war in Virginia, while Objects provides access to digital collections and curated items such as weapons, portraits, prints, military orders, and a pocket watch. Virginia Home Front divides the state into federal occupation, no-man's-land, Confederate Virginia, and the Confederate frontier. Each is mapped, and can be selected for additional information including personal accounts from the Civil War period.

Another section, Resources, is similarly worth exploring. The page offers links to lectures, websites, and articles on the Civil War and Civil War collections. The teacher resources largely consist of traveling trunks and outreach programming. Finally, if you're interested in the Confederate capital, consider listening to more than 10 one-minute history audio programs on Richmond.

Hope for America, an exhibition from the U.S. Library of Congress, focuses on the comedian Bob Hope and the marriage between humor, politics, and satire in the modern age. Various viewpoints are on display, which the site believes will allow visitors "...to draw their own conclusions regarding the interplay of politics and entertainment in American public life and its consequences for the nation’s political culture."

The site is divided into three basic themes: Political Humor, Causes and Controversies, and Blurring of the Lines. Each thematic section offers a basic overview, some poignant quotes, and links to items in the collection. A bibliography and list of events are also provided for further exploration in the top navigation menu.

It is worth noting that each of the three main thematic sections contain between seven to nine subsections. Users can choose to view the entire set of items in the three main sections, or by each subsection. In all, around 180 items are available for U.S. history teachers and students. Each item contains a brief description and most images can be viewed in larger sizes and/or downloaded for educational use.

This collection by the Library of Congress is highly recommended for educators and students of American history who want to gain a better understanding of the historical relationship between politics and comedy. Although Bob Hope is the center of the exhibit, comedians and satirists throughout the twentieth century are included. The scope of the exhibit, largely covering the entire twentieth century, is likewise helpful in understanding how humor and political concerns changed over time.

The Sewall-Belmont House is a National Woman's Party-run museum on women's equality movements in the U.S. A portion of their collections are now searchable online.

Using the site's search engine, you can easily find printing blocks for the newspaper the Suffragist, as well as cartoons by Nina Allender. Other items may be a bit more difficult to find, but the collection includes keys, voting cards, a jail door pin (worn by suffragists jailed for their activism), and more.

If you aren't sure what to look for, try either Click and Search or a selection of Random Images. Each time you access the images, a different set will be pulled from the collection. As for "click and search," you can choose a letter for any of an object's data fields (object type, creator, subject, etc.), and browse through corresponding drop-down lists. Select anything that catches your eye, and the site will bring you to that particular artifact's page.

Among these three ways of accessing the site content, you should be able to uncover a treasure trove of women's rights sources to share with your classroom.

The Center for History and New Media and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History created this website to model both historical thinking about artifacts as primary sources and possible best practices for sharing museum collections online. With the site, students can curate their own virtual history exhibits, using documents and expert interviews related to six core artifacts from different time periods. The "Guide" section introduces users to how and why artifacts are important to historians. Seven 300- to 600-word essays argue that artifacts tell stories, create connections between people, hold many different meanings, capture moments, and reflect changes. After learning how historians relate to artifacts, users can tour model exhibits in "Objects," focusing on six Smithsonian-held artifacts: Thomas Jefferson's lapdesk, the gold nugget that started the California Gold Rush, a dress that belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, an 1898 voting machine, the Woolworth counter where a sit-in took place in 1960, and a short-handled hoe used by farmworkers in the 1960s and 1970s.

An "Introduction" for each artifact includes a short introductory video placing it in its historical context and a virtual version of the artifact. Users can zoom in and out on the virtual artifact, rotate it, or click to discover interactive hot spots. Clicking "Explore" in each exhibit provides further information on the object, its place in history, and its history as a museum artifact. Interviews with Smithsonian experts and related primary sources enrich "Explore" sections. "Tour" demonstrates how the interviews and sources in "Explore" can be pulled together into exhibits: either a short 4- to 5-piece "Brief Tour" or a 5- to 13-piece "Extended Tour." "Resources" rounds up annotated links to websites with more information on topics related to each artifact. "Activity" is the heart of the site. Using the more than 220 expert interviews and primary sources from the "Object" model exhibits, students can create their own six-item exhibit. After selecting the objects that reveal the perspective or tell the story they wish to convey and labeling the objects with interpretative text, students can email their finished exhibits to their teacher (or to themselves). For even more information on the six core artifacts, users can listen to experts' recorded answers to questions about the artifacts in "Forums." The 16 recordings run from 13 minutes to an hour. The site may take time to learn to navigate and use, and sorting through the many interviews and primary sources to curate an exhibit can be frustrating (interviews and sources can be displayed by collection, but not searched). However, the site can still provide an introduction to what makes artifacts unique as primary sources, and the skills historians use to interpret artifacts and create museum exhibits.

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!

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.