Turning Students into Historians
How do you engage students with primary sources and their community? Jasmine Alinder shares a success story!
The March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project
Wisconsin teachers, bring the Civil Rights Movement home to your students with this archive of primary sources.
Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930
Covering urbanization and industrialization? This homicide index can help students understand social changes and tensions associated with both.
Tippecanoe and Walking Canes Too
A family’s oral history intersects with larger events in U.S. history.
America's Shifting Western Frontier
Go Where, Young Man?
Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858
Compare Republican and Democrat accounts of the great debates.
Questioning History Using the Census
Historian Alex Stein poses questions about population shift in Detroit, and models using census data and other sources to answer his question.
The Ways West
How emigrants traveled from Pennsylvania to Illinois in 1830.
Targeting Content and English Language Objectives
Integrating English Language Development (ELD) standards and objectives into your lesson planning can strengthen both your students’ understanding of history and their language skill levels.
Why Should Teachers Use ELD Objectives?
Intertwined Development: Railroads and Political Parties
The influence of the booming rail system on the growth and development of three political parties in the late 19th and early 20th century.
East St. Louis Massacre
Raising “the terrible weapon of self-defense” during riots in 1917 Illinois.
Mystery Strategy for Elementary Students
Using the premise of a mystery, elementary students act as history detectives as they explore a historical question and formulate and test hypotheses.
California or Bust
Who went west when? Answer questions about migration from 1935 to 2000.
United We Stand: Industry and Famous Strikes
Stand up (or sit down) for better working conditions! Test your knowledge of strikes in U.S. history.
Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture
At the virtual home of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Culture, six exhibits highlight ethnic culture in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Paul Laurence Dunbar Digital Collection
Read the books and poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, internationally famous African American writer.
Indiana Historical Society Digital Image Collections
Indiana educators, looking for visual primary sources? Search more than 38,000 photographs from the 19th century to the present.
Duluth Lynchings Online Resource: The Tragic Events of June 15, 1920
Leading up to the civil rights movement in a high school class? Explore 700 primary sources that examine one 1920 case of fatal racism.
Missouri Digital Heritage
Missouri teachers looking for primary sources, look no further. Explore this portal for resources from libraries, universities, archives, and heritage sites throughout the state.
With or Without Slavery?
Forcing the issue in Bleeding Kansas. The Lecompton Constitution, slavery, and children born to slaves.
Death of the Dream: Farmhouses in the Heartland
Begin your background research on prairie farmhouses with this website.
Photographer to the World-The Detroit Publishing Company
When travel wasn’t an easy option what views did people have of other places?
Federal Township Plats of Illinois, 1804-1891
View maps created during the early stages of surveying Illinois.
Forests, Fields, and the Falls
How did the lumber, flour, sawmill, and farming industries shape Minnesota’s future?
University of Missouri-Columbia: Digital Library Collections
A hodge podge of history: England, Missouri, and the greater U.S.
Cleveland Digital Library
Explore the history of “the forest city.”
Dox Thrash: An African American Master Printmaker Rediscovered
View depictions of African American life by artist Dox Thrash.
Thomas Eakins: American Realist
Discover one of America’s great realists, and see the Philadelphia of his day.
Harvesting the River
Explore river life—with a particular focus on food harvesting.
Worthington Memory, Online Scrapbook
Explore the history and development of a small town. The online scrapbook provides an uncanny lens into town life.
Encyclopedia Britannica: The 1911 Edition
Find out what people thought of everything from ablation to vinegar in 1911.
U.S. Steel Gary Works Photograph Collection, 1906-1971
Relive the construction of the city of steel—Gary, Indiana.
Economic Data, Fred II
Get your historical national economical statistics right here.
Characteristics of Census Tracts in Nine U.S. Cities, 1940-1960
How many hospital beds did New Orleans have in 1960? Was it able to accommodate the poor and sick?
Historical Map and Chart Collection
Teaching exploration? Why not introduce your students to nautical charts?
We Shall Overcome: Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement
Which locations, open for visitation, are most relevant to the civil rights movement?
Civil War Letters of the Christie Family
What would your life be like as a Union soldier? What did it say about your personal values?
Civics Online
Gain inspiration for new ways to approach political history.
May 4 Collection, Kent State University
What can we learn from the Kent State Riots?
Kellogg African American Health Care Project: The Oral Histories
What was health care like during segregation?
The 3Cities Project
Examine the nexus of representation, modernity, and urban life.
Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Rare Books c. 1820-1910
Explore Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin life through rare books.
Toledo's Attic: A Virtual Museum of Toledo, Ohio
Explore Toledo, Ohio’s entertainment, technological, business, and political history.
River of Song
Follow the evolution of American music along the Mississippi.
Great Lakes Maritime History Project
Delve into Wisconsin’s maritime history. Discover the multiple ways in which water shaped the history of the state.
Access to Archival Databases
Delve into more than 85 million records related to U.S. history.
St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project
Explore the largest collection of freedom suits available to U.S. researchers.
Belgian-American Research Collection
What would your life have been like as a Belgian immigrant in Wisconsin?
The Wright Brothers in Photographs
Meet the Wright Brothers and their family through photographs of friends and exploits.
Club Kaycee, Golden Age of Kansas City Jazz
Listen to jazz from the ’20s and ’40s while learning about music greats and hot spots.
Historical Maps Online
View 400 hundred years of cartography from the Illinois area.
Milwaukee Neighborhoods: Photos and Maps, 1885-1992
Take a visual journey through the development of Milwaukee, WI.
Education by Design: Using Visual Aids
Seek inspiration from classroom visual aids of the past.
New France, New Horizons: On French Soil in America
Explore French Louisiana, Canada, and the Great Lakes region.
Augustana College Library, Digital Projects
Midwest teacher looking for local history primary sources? Try these nine digital collections.
Chicago Imagebase
Witness the growth of the Chicago metro area with this interactive website.
At Home in the Heartland
Learn about family life and social history in the northern Midwest.
Chickasaw Historical Research Page
Learn about the Chickasaw Indians, originally from the American South, with this website.
Children in Urban America: A Digital Archive
Imagine what it might have been like growing up over 100 years ago.
A Century of Progress: The 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair
Browse official publications from the 1933-1934 World’s Fair.
H.H. Bennett: Photographer Extraordinaire
View commercial photography from the last half of the 19th century.
Wisconsin Magazine of History
Take in full articles from the 1917 through 2005 editions of the Wisconsin Magazine of History.
Brittingham Family Lantern Slide Collection
Catch a glimpse of wealthy turn-of-the-century Wisconsin life and travel in these photos.
Vincentian Postcards
Explore 200 years of postcards which document the Vincentian religious order of educators and nurses.
Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles Collection
Search Wisconsin newspapers mainly from 1860 through 1940.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers
What happened between 1880 and 1910 in the area where you live?
Illinois Digital Archives
Primary sources on Illinois history with an emphasis on residential and commercial architecture.
Folkstreams
View streaming videos on American folk culture from fox hunting to Zydeco.
Illinois During the Gilded Age
Listen to, read, and sing sources from the Gilded Age canvassing women, religion, and more.
McVicar/Stein Photo Copy Service Collection
Imagine life in Madison, WI, between 1920 and 1970.
Turning Points in Wisconsin History
Primary documents, background information, and lesson plans for Wisconsin history.
Encyclopedia of Chicago, Historical Sources
Imagine your life in 19th and 20th-century Chicago with this extensive collection of images.
Minnesota Maps Online
Are you interested in cartography or the natural and social environment of early Minnesota?
Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project
Tie civics into units involving Native American history using relevant full-text legal documents.
Coming of Age in the Twentieth Century, Stories from Minnesota and Beyond
What can oral histories tell us about girlhood, adolescence, and more in the United States?
Northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform in the Press
Investigate racial issues during and after the Civil War through letters, illustrations, and official documents.
Home Sweet Home: Life in 19th-Century Ohio
Examine 19th-century domestic life through sheet music and audio song files.
Musicians Local No. 627 and the Mutual Musicians Foundation
Have you heard of musicians’ unions? Learn about a 20th-century African American jazz organization.
Madison: Celebrating 150 Years
Learn about Madison, WI, from early settlement through its time as the “queen of bootleggers.”
The African-American Mosaic
Let the Library of Congress introduce you to African-American history from colonization to the WPA.
Panoramic Maps, 1847-1929
Did you know that between 1840 and 1929 many maps were not drawn to scale?
Abraham Lincoln
This lesson leads students to see how Lincoln’s life in Springfield influenced important national issues.
Namesake of a Peacekeeper
Historians have attempted to account for the great admiration that whites had for Tecumseh.
Contradictions in John Fremont's Political Chart of the US (1856)
The 1850s were a time of rapid industrialization and urbanization in the Northeastern states.
National Register of Historic Places Travel Itineraries
Explore the historic sites in more than 50 cities and towns across the U.S.
Willa Cather Archive
Read the annotated works of author Willa Cather (1873–1947), including O Pioneer! and My Antonia.
Voices from the Dust Bowl: 1940-1941
Great Depression documentation of migrant work camps in central California.
Oral History Digital Collection
In full-text narratives, more than 2,000 people from northeast Ohio discuss issues significant to the state and the nation.
African-American Experience in Ohio: From the Ohio Historical Society
Take a look through more than 30,000 items relating to African American life in Ohio between 1850 and 1920.
Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis and Clark and the Revealing of America
180 documents and artifacts interpret 19th-century westward exploration and the concept of Manifest Destiny.
Ohio Memory: An Online Scrapbook of Ohio History
A wealth of primary materials document Ohio life, culture, and history from prehistoric times to the recent past.
First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
Explore sources from the mid-18th-to-early-19th-century European migration into the Ohio River Valley.
Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project
This site examines Illinois history and the life of Abraham Lincoln in the years 1831 through 1860.
Lakota Winter Counts
Displays, explains, and interprets the Lakota pictorial histories known as winter counts.
Flint Sit-Down Strike
Provides a multimedia introduction to “the greatest strike in American history.”
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News: 1902-1933
Presents more than 55,000 Chicago Daily News photographs taken in the early 20th century.
Urban Experience in Chicago: Hull-House and Its Neighborhoods, 1889-1963
Peruse this collection of over 900 items relating to Chicago’s Hull House to discover its influence on 20th century urban development.
Prairie Settlement: Nebraska Photographs and Family Letters
Nearly 3,500 images and approximately 318 letters illuminate life on the Great Plains from 1862 to 1912.
Great Chicago Fire and the Web of Memory
Commemorates the 1871 Great Chicago Fire with an array of primary sources.
Brown v. Board of Education
Examine segregation and desegregation through summaries and the court’s opinions for two major cases.