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.

Produced as a companion to a PBS documentary, this site explores the history of Las Vegas through interviews, essays, and primary documents. "The Film and More" offers a film synopsis, a program transcript, and six primary documents on Las Vegas. These include a 1943 Time article on lenient divorce laws in Nevada as a tourist attraction and a newspaper report of an NAACP protest. "Special Features" offers seven presentations that include an interview with noted Las Vegas historian Hal Rothman, an exploration of the Federal government's public relations campaign on nuclear testing in the 1950s, and an essay on Las Vegas architecture. "People and Events" offers 14 essays on the people of Las Vegas and three essays on Las Vegas history.

An interactive map allows the visitor to survey the Las Vegas area and examine its development, and a timeline from 1829 to the present charts the growth of Las Vegas from a small railroad town to the present-day resort and gaming metropolis that is the most visited place in the world. A teachers' guide contains two suggested lessons each on history, economics, civics, and geography. The site also has 11 links to related websites and a bibliography of 55 books. The only search capability is a link to a search of all PBS sites.

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.

This archive offers a collection of more than 900,000 photographs, maps, letters, documents, books, artifacts, and other items relating to all aspects of Texas history, from prehistory through the 20th century. Subjects include agriculture, arts and crafts, education, immigration, military and war, places, science and technology, sports and recreation, architecture, business and economics, government and law, literature, people, religion, social life and customs, and the Texas landscape and nature. Some subjects include sub-categories. For instance, social life and customs, with 694 items, includes 13 sub-categories, such as clothing, families, food and cooking, homes, slavery, and travel. The visitor can also search the collection by keyword.

Resources for educators include seven "primary source adventures," divided into 4th- and 7th-grade levels, with lesson plans, preparatory resources, student worksheets, and PowerPoint slideshows. Subjects of the lessons include Cabeza de Vaca, Hood's Texas Brigade in the Civil War, life in the Civilian Conservation Corps, the journey of Coronado, the Mier Expedition, runaway slaves, the Shelby County Regulator Moderator war, and a comparison of Wichita and Comanche village life. This website offers useful resources for both researching and teaching the history of Texas.

In partnership with the National Center for Family Literacy, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History shares its work in linking literature, history, and hands-on learning on this site. A spin-off of programs presented in the museum, OurStory highlights 18 notable children's fiction and nonfiction books, including Ken Mochizuki's Baseball Saved Us, Doreen Rappaport's Martin's Big Words, and Peter and Connie Roop's Keep the Lights Burning, Annie.

The site summarizes each book and offers parents and teachers a downloadable reading guide, including vocabulary; pre-, during, and post-reading activities; descriptions and images of Smithsonian artifacts related to the text or illustrations; and related NCHS History Standards. Downloadable activity guides, outlining activities such as making a Jailed for Freedom suffragist's pin or roleplaying contemporary debate on the March on Washington, also accompany each book summary.

Visitors may browse the featured books by time period, and the activity guides by activity type. In addition, visitors may search a database of 290 fiction and nonfiction books for young people by title, author, topic, age group, book type (fiction or nonfiction), and awards (Caldecott Medal, Newberry Medal, Coretta Scott King Award, Golden Kite Award, or Scott O'Dell Historical Fiction Award). Resulting entries are sparse, offering only a one-sentence summary and basic facts about the book, but teachers may still find the database useful if they're actively in search of tested titles for teaching U.S. history.

Finally, visitors can find basic suggestions on where to look locally for field trip destinations under "Field Trips."

This massive mega-website presents thousands of documents and images related to Missouri's social, political, and economic history, linking to collections housed at universities, libraries, and heritage sites across the state. These resources are organized both into archival collections (by topic and source type) and virtual exhibits.

Archival collections include maps, municipal records, government and political records, newspapers, photographs and images, books and diaries, as well as topical collections on agriculture, medicine, women, business, exploration and settlement, art and popular culture, and family, rendering the website's resources as useful for genealogists as for those interested in history.

Exhibits encompass a diverse range of subjects, and include topics of relevance to Missouri history (Miss Carrie Watkins's cookbook from the mid-19th century, several exhibits on life at the University of Missouri and Washington University, Truman's Whistle Stop campaign), and topics outside of Missouri (the body in Medieval manuscripts, Roman imperial coins, propaganda posters from World War II, and drawings documenting dinosaur discovery before the mid-20th century).

Teachers will be especially interested in the large Education section, which includes curricular resources on topics such as African Americans in Missouri, Lewis and Clark's Expedition, Missouri State Fairs, and the history of dueling.

More than 137,000 photographs of Florida, many focusing on specific localities from the mid-19th century to the present, are available on this website. The collection, including 15 online exhibits, is searchable by subject, photographer, keyword, and date.

Materials include 35 collections on agriculture, the Seminole Indians, state political leaders, Jewish life, family life, postcards, and tourism among other things. Educational units address 17 topics, including the Seminoles, the Civil War in Florida, educator Mary McLeod Bethune, folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston, pioneer feminist Roxcy Bolton, the civil rights movement in Florida, and school busing during the 1970s.

"Writing Around Florida" includes ideas to foster appreciation of Florida's heritage. "Highlights of Florida History" presents 46 documents, images, and photographs from Florida's first Spanish period to the present. An interactive timeline presents materials—including audio and video files—on Florida at war, economics and agriculture, geography and the environment, government and politics, and state culture and history.

This PBS documentary provides many useful resources for teaching the long and influential history of Jewish Americans. At the heart of this video production is the struggle between identity and assimilation. While Jews in America often faced struggles integrating into new communities, their story is common to other immigrant groups and at the same time a "quintessentially American story."

The site is divided into six main sections. Educators will be particularly interested in the historical background offered in Jewish Life in America (which is divided into eleven subsections), the 30 video segments from the documentary, four lesson plans in For Educators, and links to online resources for teaching Jewish American history.

One noteworthy section of the site is Share Your Story. By allowing Jewish American viewers to submit recipes, immigration stories, or family traditions, this site provides an interactive platform that could enhance any classroom. Students can investigate, research, and conduct interviews with family or friends of Jewish heritage and submit their investigations online. Teachers will also find that the video segments, textual information, and online submission tool can work well together to compliment thematic units on immigration, ethnic identity, and moments in history specific to the Jewish experience.

The Yale Digital Commons provides access to sources from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Library, and Yale University on iTunes U.

Getting acquainted with the commons can be somewhat daunting. Arrival on the homepage simply offers a keyword search with only a slight indication of the extent or content types of the collections you can search. The description states the contents include "art, natural history, books, and maps, as well as photos, audio, and video documenting people, places, and events that form part of Yale's institutional identity and contribution to scholarship."

The best way to proceed is to select Advanced Search. From here, you can limit a search to items available online. You can also pick one or more of the aforementioned institutions to search within, or choose specific collections which range from African Art or American Decorative Arts to Vertebrate Zoology or Yale University.

Sources you can find using this system include apparel; architectural elements; arms and armor; books, coins, and medals; calligraphy; containers; drawings and watercolors; flatware; fossils; furniture; hardware; inscriptions; lighting devices; jewelry; manuscripts and documents; masks; minerals; miniatures; models; mosaics; musical instruments; packaging; paintings; photographs; plant and animal remains; print templates; scientific instruments; stained glass; textiles; tools and equipment; timepieces; toys and games; sculpture; and wallpaper.

Dedicated to recording the maritime history of Wisconsin (especially Lake Michigan and Lake Superior), this site features more than 7,000 documents, advertisements, and photographs of ships associated with Wisconsin waters since 1679. Geared toward the specialist as well as the beginner, the site contains a list of the more than 400 ships registered in Wisconsin over the years, as well as useful descriptions of the types of ships.

The collection is searchable by keyword and browsable. The quality of the photographs varies; some are small files, while others are quite large. The site recommends six related outside resources. This site would be very useful to anyone interested in the history of Wisconsin maritime shipping, passenger cruises, or naval history.