history resource websites

The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet.

Seminoles Taught American Soldiers a Thing or Two About Guerrilla Warfare

During the 1835–42 Second Seminole War and as Army scouts out West, these warriors from the South proved formidable.

This Patient Rider Spent Months Retracing the Pony Express on Horseback

10 Pivotal Events in the Life of Buffalo Bill

During the War Years, Posters From the American Homefront Told You What to Do — And What Not to Do

The One and Only ‘Booger’ Was Among History’s Best Rodeo Performers

Our podcast, this week in history, what if….

What If Britain Had Made Peace With Hitler?

What If the Marines Had Skipped Iwo Jima?

What If Hitler Had Defeated the Soviet Union?

What If the U.S. Had Invaded a Japanese Home Island?

Weapons & gear.

Buffalo Bill’s Tours of Italy and the ‘Spaghetti Western’ Inspired Replica Old West Firearms

Rifles and revolvers made by Uberti, Pietta, Pedersoli and other Italian firms remain popular.

How to Build Royce Williams’ MiG-Killing Panther

The Workhorse of the Berlin Airlift, the Douglas C-47 Saw Service Through Vietnam

The FADAC Was Used to Calculate Artillery Firing Data. Was it One of the First Personal Computers?

Bullard Rifles Were Popular, But Were Too Expensive and Took Too Long to Make

Historynet archives: best u.s. general.

The Man Who Saved Korea

Matthew B. Ridgway, who brought a beaten Eighth Army back from disaster in 1951, was a thinking—and fighting—man’s soldier.

Omar Bradley, the General’s General

Admiral Raymond A. Spruance: Modest Victor of Midway

Patton and the Battle of the Bulge: ‘As soon as you’re through with me, I can attack the day after tomorrow morning’

George Washington Needed to Keep His Spies Hidden. So He Financed a Secret Lab For Invisible Ink.

EDITORS’ PICKS

In 1807 a French Officer Field-Tested an Artillery Tactic That Remained Decisive for More Than a Century

The breakthrough came during the Battle of Friedland, the victory that decided the War of the Fourth Coalition in Napoleon’s favor.

Embattled Banner: The True History of the Confederate Flag

What If Hitler Had Won World War II?

Sid Cotton’s Air Force was an early ‘eye in the sky’ for Britain’s Intelligence Service

Haunted by the Dead: Grave Digging in WWII was a Job No Soldier Wanted

Historynet magazines.

Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world.

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• Harvard Library
• Research Guides
• Faculty of Arts & Sciences Libraries

Library Research Guide for History

• Finding Primary Sources Online
• Newsletter February 2024
• Exploring Your Topic
• HOLLIS (and other) Catalogs
• Document Collections/Microfilm
• Outline of Primary Sources for History

Finding Primary Sources Online: Contents

General Digital Libraries

Is This Book Available Open Access?

Finding primary sources on the open web.

Finding the Right Subscription Database

Museum Objects

Local online sources, digitized harvard collections, digital libraries/collections by region or language.

• Finding Online Sources: Detailed Instructions
• Religious Periodicals
• Personal Writings/Speeches
• Oral History and Interviews
• News Sources
• Archives and Manuscripts
• Government Archives (U.S.)
• U.S. Government Documents
• Foreign Government & International Organization Documents
• French Legislative Debates/Documents
• State and City Documents
• Historical Statistics/Data
• GIS Mapping
• Public Opinion
• City Directories
• Policy Literature, Working Papers, Think Tank Reports (Grey Literature)
• Technical Reports (Grey Literature)
• Country Information
• Corporate Annual Reports
• US Elections
• Travel Writing/Guidebooks
• Missionary Records
• Reference Sources
• Harvard Museums
• Boston-Area Repositories
• Citing Sources & Organizing Research
• Newsletter January 2011
• Newsletter June 2012
• Newsletter August 2012
• Newsletter December 2012
• Newsletter June 2013
• Newsletter August 2013
• Newsletter January 2014
• Newsletter June 2014
• Newsletter August 2014
• Newsletter January 2015
• Newsletter June 2015
• Newsletter August 2015
• Newsletter January 2016
• Newsletter June 2016
• Newsletter August 2016
• Newsletter January 2017
• Newsletter June 2017
• Newsletter August 2017
• Newsletter January 2018
• Newsletter June 2018
• Newsletter August 2018
• Newsletter August 2019
• Newsletter December 2019
• Newsletter March 2021
• Newsletter October 2021
• Newsletter June 2019
• Newsletter May 2022
• Newsletter February2023
• Newsletter October 2023
• Exploring Special Collections at Harvard
• Newsletter October 2024

This page lists resources for digitized historical primary sources. Resources containing books, archives/manuscripts and mixed collections are included. Databases for particular primary source types, newspapers, periodicals, personal writings, images, films, etc., are listed on their own pages in this guide. A list of primary sources types with links is given at Outline of Primary Sources for History . We have a list of digital collections, both Harvard subscription databases and free Web collections at Online Primary Source Collections for History . It is still in an early stage of development.

General resources are listed first, then the same categories of resources, where needed, are listed by region or language.

• General Full Text Searchable Digital Libraries  offer full text searches of books and periodicals.  Sometimes include archival/manuscript material, films, etc.
• Finding Primary Sources on the Open Web .  There is no one method for finding all digitized material.  Several methods are listed here - mainly item and collection-level searches
• Finding the Right Subscription Database . Subcollections, individual items (books, manuscripts, images), and full text in the hundreds of subscription (commercial) databases are generally not findable on open web searches, so it is difficult to know which databases may be useful. Methods of solving this problem are given here.

 HathiTrust Digital Library, Internet Archive, Google Book Search offer books and periodicals digitized from numerous libraries.  Each of these three digital libraries allows searching full text over their entire collections.

HathiTrust Digital Library  is a huge collection of digitized books and periodicals. Each full text item is linked to a standard library catalog record, thus providing good metadata and subject terms. Most items pre-1925 will be full text viewable.  After 1925, a much smaller number will be full text viewable.  You can search within non-full text viewable works and obtain the pages numbers where your search terms occur.   Most US, and some state, government documents will be full text viewable.

There is also a separate full text search for US government documents .

Advanced Full Text Search

In the first (Full Text) Advanced Full Text Search field, you can put terms for a full text search.  Phrases and proper names work best (exact phrase).  If you search two or more separate keywords, when you search within particular volumes, those pages containing all the keywords will sort first.

In the second search field, you can limit your full text search by:

• Title, searching the contents of a particular work, including periodical titles
• Author, searching the works of a particular author, including names of organizations and government entities.
• Subject, searching the Subject terms (same Subject terms as those used in HOLLIS) for a particular topic

Internet Archive  .

• Full text for a variety of digitized print materials and archived web pages (Wayback Machine), as well as manuscripts (a few), digitized microfilm, films, audio files, TV News, and more.  Many recent books are full text viewable if you set up a free account. You can use a Google password.
• Unlike Google and Hathitrust, IA usually offers multiple download options including e-readers.

Full Text Search Options. You can search  Internet Archive  for texts bearing a specified Subject term, Title, or Author (Creator). Shift from Search metadata to Search text contents.

• subject:Calcutta AND cholera [Use lower case for subject, title, creator]
• For a periodical: title:American Machinist AND "Spring breakage has been eliminated"
• creator:Parker, T. Jeffery AND "oosperm or unicellular embryo" [note: The correct form of the name must be used. Find this by trying out the name in Advanced Search: Creator. When you find the right name, shift from Search metadata to Search text contents ]

Much of the Internet Archive content is organized into full text searchable Collections. Thus, if you search “Civil rights” you retrieve 104,660 items which are partially organized into 178 collections (see under Media Type in the left hand column). Some of the collections are topical (Kent State Shootings) or they include issues of a particular periodical or podcast. Collections are often nested. For example:

• Medical Officer of Health reports  (British and Colonial) within  The Medical Heritage Library
• Army Times 1940-2015  within  Periodicals

By no means are all periodical issues and other items included in collections. In these cases periodical titles can be full text searched using the title:American Machinist AND "Spring breakage has been eliminated" method.

Periodicals in Internet Archive

Many are available full text in the  Internet Archive ,  including  numerous trade periodicals . Search: collection:(Periodicals) AND Railroads. Select Media Type: Collections

In Advanced search:

Any field: Your topic Collection is: Periodicals

You can search full text within a particular volume, over the whole Internet Archive, or within a particular Collection. 

• Periodicals https://archive.org/details/periodicals
• Serials in Microfilm https://archive.org/details/sim_microfilm

Omit colons (:) and other punctuation in titles

These searches yield individual issues and whole runs.  Isolate whole runs by choosing Collections under Media Type.

• Medical Heritage Library which is also separately searchable  and the  Biodiversity Heritage Library which is separately searchable
• Much South Asian material
• 28 million  documents and texts , including 4.6 million digitized books
• 6 million  television news programs  and  other videos
• 14 million audio items ( Audio Archive ), including  live concerts ,  vinyl recordings ,  audiobooks ,  radio shows , and  podcasts
• 3.5 million  images
• 580,000  games  and other software titles
• 475 billion web pages stored in the  Wayback Machine

In Advanced search you can search say Description: "South Asia", and at the top left of the results page choose Media type: Collection.  When on a Collection page, you can search within by metadata or full text

The Internet Archive is so large and various that it can be difficult to navigate.  These partial lists of contents are useful:

• Lists of Internet Archive's collections
• Lists of Internet Archive's collections: External Collections
• Additional Collections

Google Book Search offers full text of:

• Largely, pre-1924 books and periodicals scanned from libraries,
• Post-1924 books and periodicals digitized in libraries. Full text searchable and snippet views displayed
• "Previews" of books submitted by publishers. Some pages are hidden.  Some, but not all, of the hidden pages are searchable.

Internet History Sourcebooks Project

World Digital Library  offers primary source materials.

The Making of the Modern World offers full text searching of works on economics and business published from 1450-1914 from the Kress Collection of Business and Economics at the Baker Library, Harvard Business School and the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature at the University of London Library. Includes material on commerce, finance, social conditions, politics, public health, trade and transport. A great deal of more recently acquired material in the Kress Collection is not included in The Making of the Modern World .

There are several sources for finding free, open access, books online.

Try HathiTrust , Internet Archive , and Google Books as described above. Harvard members should be sure to log into HathiTrust to see the Covid Temporary Access material.

Internet Archive  offers numerous in-copyright books for one-hour (renewable) loan.  Free registration needed.

WorldCat  Open Access searches for open access material. Adjust Search in database : from WorldCat to OpenAccessContent

The Online Books Page arranges electronic texts by Library of Congress call numbers and is searchable (but not full text searchable).  Includes books not in Google Books, HathiTrust, or Internet Archive. Has many other useful features.

The Open Library , although its books reside in the Internet Archive, includes many books not findable by searching the Internet Archive directly

OAPEN: Open Access Publishing in European Networks

OpenEdition - the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB). Good for non-US imprints

The Digital Public Library of America’s Open Bookshelf offers numerous open access books.

WorldCat (Public version) allows limiting a search to open access material. Use Advanced Search. Check Open Access . Select Format: Book if desired.

Check your local public library ebook collection. 

There is no one way to find digitized primary sources on the Internet. The following offers methods for finding online historical resources which are more focused than a simple Google search. Most find items within digital collections. A few search the full text.

In most one cannot effectively limit to archival/manuscript sources.  Specific searches usually work better than broad topical searches.  Searches for proper names often yield good results.

The Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America offers textual, visual, and sound resources contributed by numerous libraries, archives, and museums.  Searches catalog records, not full text, and links to the items on the contributors' websites.  Contains many individual items, such as letters and photographs, from digital collections.

Advanced Google Searches

General Google searches may yield very many results, and it may take much sifting through the results in order to find relevant items. Using  Google Advanced Search  with specific search terms can help yield more focused results.​ Detailed instructions for searching Google Advanced Search .

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) searches metadata and some full text, from over 2000 sources of academic open access documents.  About 60% of the documents indexed are available full text.  The metadata searched is provided by the source and tagging is often inexact.  This is a vast collection of documents and has much not available elsewhere. Use Browsing to narrow your search to subject area (e.g., Literature) or Document type (e.g., Manuscript, broadly construed).  Open Browsing and choose-Dewey Decimal (for Subject), choose major subject to see next finer level, twice.  After choosing View Records add a search term to the Subject Term or Document Type:

EROMM: European Register of Microform and Digital Masters searches its own database of records of printed and handwritten material in digital form or on microfilm from institutions worldwide and offers web search for such material.

WorldCat (the OCLC Union Catalog)

Numerous digitized collections of primary sources have records in  WorldCat .  These collections of primary sources are often swamped by ebooks on the same subject. There is no one perfect method for finding them, but the following may be tried for any topic.  Always find the proper  Subject terms for your topic  and search using those as well as any keywords.  Use Advanced search.  Detailed instructions for searching WorldCat .

OAISTER  is a subset of WorldCat for open access online academic material. It can be useful in separating digitized primary sources from the numerous ebooks in WolrldCat.  It includes digitized books and journal articles, open access publications, manuscript/archival material, photographic images, audio and visual files, data sets, and theses. It includes such a vast range of resources that digitized archival and other primary sources are lost in the abundant results if a broad topical term is used.  So it is best to use a narrow term or proper name. Thus "Act-Up" yields archival letters. It is possible to limit a search to Archival Material, but I have not found this to be useful.

To find databases available via Harvard Library by subject, go to HOLLIS Databases , scroll down to Best Databases for… and open History, or other topic.  Refine your results set on the right.  For example, for historical resources relating to women, go to Subject Category, open Show More, open Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.  Also look for research guides on your subject among the Harvard Library research guides (Open Guides by Subject).

Because there are so many subscription databases, and because each database often includes numerous subcollections, it is difficult to know which databases may contain the sources you want.  For example, Vietnam War and American Foreign Policy, 1960-1975 (ProQuest History Vault) includes U.S. State Department Office of the Executive Secretariat Crisis Files. Part 1, the Berlin Crisis, 1957-1963.  Detailed instructions for finding these subcollections .

The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Museum Resources, E-Learning, and Online Collections (Museum Computer Network)

68 Cultural, Historical and Scientific Collections you can Explore Online (Smithsonian)

Digital Artifacts and Images for Ethnography and Archaeology (University of Michigan)

HOLLIS Search for objects in Houghton (incomplete)

Many sources digitized by local public libraries, historical societies and other institutions may be found via the Digital Public Library of America , the state/regional portals , and worldwide, via the tools listed below .  But some will not be findable. For local sources one may visit the websites of nearby institutions.

Library Directories

• LibWeb State Libraries
• LibWeb Public Libraries

Library Resources outside the U.S. (Brown University) offers overviews of library resources worldwide

Archival Directories

Historical Society Directories

• Preservation Directory.com
• Society Hill Directories lists historical societies for the US, Canada, and Australia.  Very comprehensive but not recently updated.  Google society names for their web pages.

Harvard Digital Collections  offers item level access to digitized resources.

CURIOSity Digital Collections   offers collection level access to digitized resources.

Harvard Law School Library Digital Collections

More information in  Finding Harvard's Unique or Distinctive Primary Sources: Original and Digital

International

Asia, South

Asia, Southeast

• Australia and Pacific

Czech Republic

• France/French
• Netherlands

Russia/Eastern Europe

Switzerland

United Kingdom/English Language

• Indian Ocean Islands

Latin America/Caribbean

• Middle East/North Africa

United States

Endangered Archives Programme  offers digitized material (manuscripts, rare printed books, documents, newspapers, periodicals, photographs and sound recordings) (largely pre -mid-20th century) at risk of loss or decay in countries worldwide.  When looking fo.r material on a country, use Search all endangered archives. Do not rely on Related places or Project country (on the left).

Digital Library for International Research (DLIR) offers printed and manuscript material from numerous countries worldwide. Search/browse level: Collection, Item

Lists of Digital Collections

Other Libraries' Research Guides are often contains Lists of Digital Collections

In Google Advanced Search

• all these words: library [your topic keywords]
• any of these words: guides research resources
• List of country domain names .
• Digital collections: Rechtshistorie  offers valuable lists of  national digital libraries  and of  digitized archival material by country .

BlackPast offers resources on the history of African America and people of African ancestry worldwide.

• Bodleian History Faculty Library Bookmarks
• Digital Library Directory is a searchable collection of links to digital collections.
• ECHO: Cultural Heritage Online
• PSM-Data: Geschichte is a collection of primary (P) and secondary (S) sources, many in English.
• Internet History Sourcebooks  is a collection of digital primary source documents, largely in English.
• Internet Sites with Primary Sources for History (BGSU)
• History (University of Washington)  The Primary Sources pages of the History guides list numerous primary source collections
• Guide to Online Primary Sources (UC San Diego)
• Online Books Page Archives and Indexes
• Voice of the Shuttle: History . This is the history page of a huge collection of links to humanities (broadly conceived) resources,
• World History: Primary Source Collections Online
• WWW Virtual Library

Periodicals and Newspapers

Sources for Newspapers: Guide to Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes

Union List of Digitized Jewish Historic Newspapers, Periodicals and e-Journals

African Activist Archive  (1950s-1990s) includes: pamphlets, newsletters, leaflets, buttons, posters, photographs, and audio/video recordings relating to social justice activism in supporting Africans.  Offers an international directory of non-digitized collections in repositories worldwide.

African Online Digital Library   (AODL) (Michigan State Univ) offers photographs, videos, archival documents, maps, interviews and oral histories in numerous African languages.

Aluka Digital Library  images and full text concerning:  World Heritage Sites: Africa  and  Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa .

Digital Innovation South Africa is a digital library on the socio-political history of South Africa.

The  Liberated Africans Project  contains information on Africans liberated by international efforts, 1808-1896, to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. Includes material in the British National Archives and the Sierra Leone National Archives

OurLagosHistory.com  offers pamphlets, newspaper articles and other material on the history of Lagos.

Akkasah Photographic Archive  at NYU Abu Dhabi offers over 9000 photographs of the Middle East and North Africa 

Africana Library Catalogs & Archives   (Columbia)

African Studies Internet Resources  (Columbia) 

Primary Source Collections Online: Africa

History: Africa: Primary Sources (Univ. of Wisc.)

The AsiaPortal e-resources collection  "focuses primarily on resources for  studies of modern and contemporary Asia defined as Central Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Oceania. There are databases, information rich websites, e-books and journals. Most resources are freely available, but some are licensed only for use by students and staff at Nordic NIAS Council"

Japan Search digital archive search tool

Lahore University of Management Sciences Digital Library

National Digital Library of India

University of Tubingen Hermann Gundert Portal  (Indian Language Printed Material and Manuscript Collections)

University of Wisconsin Bhopal Disaster Archive

National Archives of India Digital Collections

Gokhale Library (Maharashtra, India) Printed Reports

Asiatic Society of Mumbai Digital Collections

West Bengal Public Library Network

South Asia Open Archive  extensive archive of South Asian materials including several collections in the English language

South Asian Culture: South Asian Cultural Archives and Resources for Study Resources

Short Guide to Online Archives for Students (Archives of Economic Life in South and Southeast Asia)

Harvard University Stuart Cary Welch Islamic and South Asian Photograph Collection

Cornell South East Asia Collections

Kerala Sahitya Akademi Portal (Malayalam Language)

National Archives of Singapore Digital Collections

Neliti: Indonesia's Research Repository offers 300,000 books, datasets and journal articles from Southeast Asia.

Shiju Alex Kerala History Archive  (mainly consisting of printed texts in Malayalam but also including several English language Missionary papers)

Southeast Asia Digital Library

Australia/Pacific

Trove: Online Research Portal

Pacific Digital Library

digitalpasifik.org offers digitized records of Pacific cultural heritage, held worldwide, so that people in and of Pacific can connect with their stories.

Pacific digital resources (National Library of Australia)

History: Australia, New Zealand & Oceania: Primary Sources (U. Washington)

Canadian National Digital Heritage Index

The Glenbow Archives  online collections (1860s-1990s) offers archival records relating to Calgary, southern Alberta and Western Canada.  Special focus:  indigenous history, Mounted Police, pioneer life, ranching and agriculture, the petroleum industry, politics (especially the farmers movement), labour and unions, women, the arts (especially theatre), and business.

PORT (University of London) offers descriptions of European libraries, archives, and cultural institutions.

CERL Resources (Consortium of European Research Libraries)

      Includes link to Online Manuscripts Databases and Projects

General digital libraries

Early European Books  offers full text of books published on the Continent, beginnings to 1701. Not full text searchable.  Overview of contents .

Central and Eastern European Online Library   is an online archive which provides access to full text PDF articles from 441 humanities and social science journals and re-digitized documents pertaining to Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European topics.

Virtual Library Eastern Europe  (ViFaOst)

Digital Scriptorium is an image database of medieval and renaissance manuscripts from many American institutions

TEMPO: Early Modern Pamphlets Online (1486-1853) currently includes about 47,000 pamphlets largely in Dutch, German and Latin.

Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) offers digitized works Reformation and Post-Reformation/Early Modern theology and philosophy. “Late medieval and patristic works printed and referenced in the early modern era are also included”.

Tools for Finding Digitized Material

Europeana: Cultural collections of Europe  is the largest European search engine for digitized books, images, manuscripts, etc. Searches catalogs records of material contributed by numerous repositories.  Not full text searchable; links to full text.  Similar to the Digital Library of America.  Search tips .

European Navigator documents the development of a united Europe from 1945 on.

Lists of Digital Libraries and Collections

European History Primary Sources  is an index of scholarly websites providing access to primary sources. Offers collection level search.

EuroDocs: Online Sources for European History: Selected Transcriptions, Facsimiles and Translations . List of digitized documents by country

History: Europe: Primary Sources (Berkeley)

Medieval Digital Resources (Medieval Academy of America)

MICHAEL: Multilingual Inventory of Cultural Heritage in Europe  searches digital collections at the collection rather than the item level from European museums, archives and libraries.  Contains material not in Base, Europeana or EROMM

Open Access in Central and Eastern Europe  contains scientific and secondary source open access as well as historical primary sources.

Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia: A Research Guide: Digital Libraries and Web Resources  (Princeton)

Selected Internet Resources for History  (Western Europe)

WessWeb  (Western European Studies Section, Association of College and Research Libraries)

Judaica Europeana: a network of museums, libraries and archives

Sources for periodicals: Finding Articles in General and Popular Periodicals (North America and Western Europe)

Kulturpool  – a portal for cultural institutions in Austria with a search interface for their digital collections

Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Digital Reading Room

Bildarchiv Austria : Historic photographs

Kramerius - Digital Library of Czech Books and Periodicals . 19th - early 20th centuries.

Czech web archive  

France/Francophone

ARTFL Project (American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language)

Classiques Garnier Numérique  offers the Bibliographie de la littérature française, together with collections of French language primary texts and reference works, including French and francophone literature (Europe, Africa, Indian Ocean, Americas, Asia) and dictionaries and grammars from the 9th to the 20th century.

Gallica  includes the full-text for more than 100,000 volumes and 300,000 images covering the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century, with an emphasis on nineteenth-century material. Included are dictionaries and encyclopedias, journals, manuscripts, recordings and images.

French and Francophone Digital Humanities Projects  (ACRL)

History: Europe: France (Berkeley)

Paris: Bibliotheques patrimoniales . Catalog of Paris libraries with links to digitized material.

Réseau francophone numérique contains digitized historical material from French-speaking countries worldwide.

Patrimoine numérique. Catalogue des collections  numérisées

Bibliothèque Francophone Numérique .  Scroll down for Découvrez les Collections par Zones Géographiques.

Digital Humanities Database . A searchable database of French and Francophone Studies digital projects. Collection/project level search.

Clio Guide. Ein Handbuch zu digitalen Ressourcen für die Geschichtswissenschaften

Digital Libraries

Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek  offers textual and visual resources contributed by numerous libraries, archives, and museums.  Searches catalog records, not full text, and links to the items on the contributors' websites.  Contains many individual items, such as letters and photographs, from digital collections.

Deutsches Textarchiv  (1650-1900) includes texts from numerous subject areas.  Description .

Göttinger Digitalisierungs-Zentrum  hosts a large collection of mainly, but not exclusively, German books in several subject areas.

Zentrales Verzeichnis Digitalisierter Drucke  (ZVDD) is the German national portal for digitized scholarly imprints. Searches easily limited by century of publication.

Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online

Münchener Digitalisierungszentrum : Open-access collection of digitized books and other content held by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (München).

DocumentArchiv.de: Historischen Dokumenten- und Quellensammlung zur deutschen Geschichte ab 1800 is a large collection of full text German primary documents.

Datenbank Schrift und Bild 1900-1960 offers German language texts and photographs

Digitised Fonds : Direct access to the Federal Archives' files available online

German Studies: Digital Collections (ACRL)

The German Studies Collaboratory

Germanistik im Netz : Catalog search

Kulturerbe Digital   offers links to search engines for German digitized material, together with a searchable and browsable list of digitization projects.

Clio-online: Fachportal für die Geschichtswissenschaften  (Largely German)

Inventory of Digital Projects in German Studies or From German-Speaking Countries .  History page (Link dead in site)

Digitale Sammlungen: Liste digitaler Sammlungen mit deutschsprachigen gemeinfreien Büchern

Academy of Athens Digital Repository  (for manuscripts) and  Digital Library  (for the Academy's works and for their rare books collection)

Anemi - Digital Library of Modern Greek Studies

Hungarian Electronic Library . 

Digital Repository of Ireland

Internet Culturale: cataloghi e collezioni digitali delle biblioteche Italiane/Biblioteca Digitale Italiana

Storia Digitale: Contenuti Online per la Storia

The Netherlands

History: Europe: Netherlands & Low Countries (Berkeley)

Dutch National Library offers digitized works

Early Dutch Books Online (1781-1800) contains 10,000 books from the Dutch-speaking region.

Historici.nl (-2000) contains full text of numerous secondary and primary books and periodicals in Dutch history

Polona: Poland  Virtual archive

National Digital Library Polona . Middle Ages - mid-20th century.

Polish digital libraries federation offers online collections of Polish cultural and scientific institutions.

University Library in Poznan: Digital Libraries

Polish History and Culture

National Digital Library (Russia)

FEB-web - Fundamental Digital Library of Russian Literature . Middle Ages to present.

Digital Resources for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies describes online resources available via Harvard digital platforms or produced and freely accessible outside the Harvard system --Note the Open Access link on the Archives page. At Please find our list of open access resources for research in Soviet History there is a large list of resources.

International and Area Studies Library (Univ. of Illinois)

Slavic Studies: Resources for the study of Slavic cultures, literatures, and languages.

Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia: A Research Guide: Digital Libraries and Web Resources (Princeton)

History: Europe: Russia (Berkeley)

History: Europe: Other Eastern Europe (Berkeley)

Digital National Library of Serbia

Digital Library of Slovenia

Biblioteca Digital Hispánica

Biblioteca Virtual del Patrimonio Bibliográfico  offers digitized manuscripts and early printed books from Spanish libraries and archives.

Digital Memory of Instituto Cervantes

Hispana: directorio y recolector de recursos digitales  is a central index of over 4 million digital objects from 195 repositories and 326 different projects throughout Spain.

ALVIN: Platform for digital collections and digitized cultural heritage

E-Codices, Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland

e-rara.ch, the platform for digitized rare books from Swiss libraries: https://www.e-rara.ch

Searching Early English Books Online (EEBO), Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and Early American Imprints. Since spelling in early books is variable and the long s (which looks like an f) is often used, it is important to try variant spellings and the wild card feature. ECCO offers fuzzy searching in Advanced Search

Both Early English Books Online (EEBO) and Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) contain full text of most books published 1475-1800 in Great Britain and North America and books published in English anywhere.

Early English Books Online  (EEBO) offers full text for works, including much ephemera and many periodicals, dated 1475-1700. Uses Library of Congress Subject Headings.

EEBO uses page images and OCR text. Although searchable by words and phrases, there are character recognition errors and full Boolean searching is not possible.  Early English Books Online Text Creation  Partnership  has input over 25,000 works and offers corrected text and full Boolean and other search capabilities for this subset of EEBO. Periodicals included in EEBO include corantos, newsbooks and periodicals included in the  Thomason Tracts .  Periodicals Search guide . Search Guide: Early English Books Online  (EEBO)

Eighteenth Century Collections Online  (ECCO) offers full text for English language works dated 1700-1800. Uses Library of Congress Subject Headings. Searchable by words and phrases based on the OCR text. Many 18th century American imprints are not included in ECCO because they are available in Early American Imprints (EAI) (next).

Both EEBO and ECCO are based on the  English Short Title Catalog  (ESTC) which has over 470,000 catalog (no full text) entries listing books, periodicals, newspapers and some ephemera printed before 1801. Works published in Britain, Ireland, British colonies, and the US are included, together with items printed elsewhere which contain significant text in English, Welsh, Irish or Gaelic. Books falsely claiming London publication are included. Items omitted from ECCO because they are available in EAI are represented in the ESTC. Reprints (reissues of original works) are not usually included in ECCO; they are fully represented in the ESTC.

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship)  (1770-1920) searches (full text search available) selected digital scholarship and primary source databases related to the British and American long 19th century. Where fee-based material is found, you will have to go through Harvard Library E-Resources; no automatic link to Harvard resources is available.

British History Online  (11th-19th cent.) offers printed primary and secondary sources for the history of the British Isles. These resources cover ecclesiastical and religious history, intellectual and cultural history, local history, urban development, economic history, parliamentary history, and administrative and legal matters.

• Archives Hub : British digital collections
• Online Resources  (Institute of Historical Research)
• Research guides: Online collections  (UK National Archives)

Culture Grid is a UK national aggregator for museum collections information.  Culture Grid contributes records to Europeana .

Connected Histories: British History Sources, 1500-1900  provides federated searching for several databases of British primary historical sources, including the primary source content of  British History Online  for 1500-1900.

Manuscripts Online  (1000 to 1500) searches a variety of online resources on manuscript and early printed culture in Britain. Includes literary manuscripts, historical documents and early printed books on websites of libraries, archives, universities and publishers. Some of the resources searched are only accessible via subscription. These resources allow free snippet results but do not provide full access. Project blog .

Connected Histories and Manuscripts Online are not integrated into the Try Harvard Library system. When you find something in a licensed/subscription database only a snippet view will display, and you will need to go to the same resource in the Harvard system (if we have it) and redo the search.

Connected Histories and Manuscripts Online (above) include both free and subscription databases.

British Library Images Online

Images of Empire  (British Empire & Commonwealth Museum)

John Johnson Collection: an archive of printed ephemera (18th-20th centuries). Collection, housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, documents everyday life in Britain.

Science & Society Picture Library offers over 50,000 images from the Science Museum (London), the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television and the National Railway Museum.

Visual Arts Data Service  (VADS) offers images of art, design, and posters.

Indian Ocean

Bibliothéque numérique contains a collection of digitized Mauritian rare books, journals, annual reports and government documents.

Biblioteca Digital del Patrimonio Iberoamericano Contains manuscripts, sound recordings, newspapers, maps, drawings, and other primary source materials from the national libraries of Latin American countries,

Caribbean Memory Project

Catálogo Colectivo de Impresos Latinoamericanos (1539-1850) offers a union catalog of Spanish/Portuguese letterpress material printed in Latin America, Caribbean, United States and Philippines.

Digital Library of the Caribbean Digitized archival materials originating in the Caribbean and also Latin American beyond the Caribbean.  Collections, subjects covered, and types of materials included .

Early Caribbean Digital Archive

Gale World Scholar Latin America & the Caribbean Archive includes primary source documents, academic journals and news feeds, reference sources, maps, statistics, audio and video

Manioc: Bibliothèque numérique Caraïbe, Amazonie, Plateau des Guyanes

Sabin Americana Digital Archive  (1500-1926) searchable full text of European writings on the Americas.  Description .  On Joseph Sabin .

Mexico Digital Library

Latin American & Caribbean Digital Primary Sources (Seminar on the Acquisition of Latin American Library Materials) A listing of freely available digitized collections of various types of primary source materials from many Latin American countries.

History: Latin America: Primary Sources  (University of Washington guide)

History: Latin America (Berkeley)

Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) Guide to Latin American material on the Web, with links to primary sources.

Middle East

Discovering the Treasures of the National Library (Israel)

Qatar Digital Library

Shamela Free Digital Collection of Arabic Books

Waqfeya Arabic books with a focus on Islamic Religious Sciences

Duke University Libraries, Ottoman-Turkish Literature

IRCICA FARABİ digital library (Turkey)

American University in Cairo Digital Collections

University of Hamburg, Islamic Printed Page project

Hebrew Books

Digital Library of the Middle East

Akkasah – Digitised Photographs from the Middle East and North Africa

American Centre for Oriental Resources Library Photo Archive

Arab Image Foundation Archive  (Non Profit archive of Middle Eastern images based in Beirut) 

ArchNet archive of Middle Eastern Built Environments , curated by the Aga Khan Documentation Centre at MIT

Das Bild des Orients . Searchable in German and English

Levantine Heritage Foundation

Middle East Photograph Archive  (University of Chicago)

Palestine Poster Project Archives

Saudi Aramco World Digital Archive  (1964- ) Aramco World magazine, published/unpublished images

Field Guide to Islamic Law Online Archives & Library Collections

Manuscripts | Digital Resources and Projects in Islamic Studies

Online Archives, Digitized Collections and Resources for Middle East, North African, and Islamic(ate) Studies (Hazine)

Orient-Institut Istanbul: Databases, portals, and virtual libraries

Access to Middle East and Islamic Resources  (AMIR). Blog with links to numerous online resources on Teaching and Learning in this region

Middle East & Islamic Studies Collection Digital Collections

The Digital Public Library of America  offers textual, visual, and sound resources contributed by numerous libraries, archives, and museums.  Searches catalog records, not full text, and links to the items on the contributors' websites.  Contains many individual items, such as letters and photographs, from digital collections.

Digital Libraries by State

These websites list hundreds of local, state, and regional resources. Each is different and some are better designed than others.  Very useful when your topic has a regional focus.

• State Archives and Collaborative (NARA)
• 250+ Killer Digital Libraries and Archives
• 71 Digital Portals to State History

American Broadsides and Ephemera, Series 1, 1760-1900

Early American Imprints, Series 1 (1639-1800)  and  Early American Imprints, Series 2 (1801-1819)  are based on the microform collection of books, pamphlets and broadsides issued in America recorded in Charles Evans' American Bibliography and Roger P. Bristol's Supplement to Charles Evans' American Bibliography, and in American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1801-1819 by Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker.

For the colonial era, overlaps with Early English Books Online and Eighteenth Century Collections Online .

Sabin Americana Digital Archive  (1500-1926) searchable full text of writings on the Americas, including many European works.  Description .  On Joseph Sabin .

NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship)  (1770-1920) searches (full text search available) selected digital scholarship and primary source databases related to the British and American long 19th century. Where fee-based material is found, you will have to go through Harvard Library E-Resources; no automatic link to Harvard resources is available.

American Pamphlets, Series 1, 1820-1922  offers pamphlets held at the New York Historical Society.

Nineteenth Century in Print: The Making of America in Books and Periodicals

American Memory  (Library of Congress)

National Archives (US) Catalog  - Can be limited to archival materials online

Microfilm Publications and Original Records Digitized by Our Digitization Partners :  Ancestry ,  Fold3 ,  FamilySearch . National Archives.

AMDOCS: Documents for the Study of American History: Online documents arranged by year

Umbra Search African American History

Discovering American Women's History Online . Offers collection level search.  Another version .

MEAD: The Magazine of Early American Datasets is an online repository of datasets on early North America. Datasets are in original format and as comma-separated-value files (.csv). Each dataset accompanied by codebook.

U.S. History: Primary Source Collections Online  (SHSU)

Primary Sources for United States History  (RUSA)

Images of America: a history of American life in images and texts  is the online version of thousands of books in the Arcadia US local history series. The histories Includes photographs from archives, historical societies and private collections. Images and text are fully searchable. Searchable by location, person, event, date, ethic group and organization. Search HOLLIS+ HOLLIS tab Advanced search as Series (exact phrase) Images of America for the print books.

American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920 contains about 2,800 lantern slide views of American buildings and landscapes.

Detroit Publishing Company, 1880-1920  (Library of Congress) photograph collection includes over 25,000 items, mostly of the eastern U.S., with subject index and keyword searchable.

History of the American West (1860-1920) offers over 30,000 photographs from the Denver Public Library.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog

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51 Great Online Resources for History Teachers

We are currently building this page to help history and social studies teachers, instructors and professors find useful online resources. This project will probably never end because new sites are continuously created and old sites disappear. We have already blown past 51 great online resources. If any of the resources link to a dead page or you would like to suggest a useful site please send an email to [email protected] .

DailyHistory.org Study Guides

DailyHistory.org has over 900 articles that cover a multitude of topics. Our study guides organize core groups of materials for specific eras, and you can look for other articles with our search function. In addition to articles, we also have book reviews and booklists. Additionally, we have the complete Federalist Papers.

United States History American Civil War World War One World War Two Ancient History Roman History Renaissance History Ancient Greek History Ancient Egypt History The History of Things Book Reviews Booklists The Federalist Papers

• The American Yawp

The American Yawp is an outstanding free online textbook that is divided into two volumes. You can also get a paper copy of the book from the Stanford University Press for $24.95 for each volume. The American Yawp is a massive "Collaboration Open U.S. History Textbook." Essentially it is an open-source textbook. Historians essentially modeled the textbook on the open-source model that has been successfully used for numerous computer programs such as Linux, MediaWiki, Wordpress, and many more. In addition to the textbook, "The American Yawp" has an excellent Sourcebook that can be used to expand on topics with primary source documents.

Besides being an excellent textbook, it is a great way to help reduce textbook costs for students because it can be accessed online for free.

• Digital History

"Digital History" is a free textbook and sourcebook for United States History written and created by Steven Mintz and Sara McNeil . It's a great site that has a ton of content. Additionally, "Digital History" is supported by the University of Houston. Digital History also provides quizzes, interactive history modules, timelines, and teaching resource that include lesson plans and handouts. The site does use flash and some browsers will block some of the images.

• EDSITEment! - National Endowment for the Humanities

EDSITEment! focuses on Lesson Plans and Study Activities. The Lesson Plans cover some topics and are exceptionally detailed. The plans even suggest how many class sessions should be used to teach the lesson. The lesson plan also breaks down how each day should be organized to get through all of the material. For example, take a look at Turning the Tide in Europe, 1941-1944 . It provides background for the lesson, preparation, lesson activities, assessment, lesson extensions, and a ton of resources. These are some of the best lesson plans you will find online.

The site also has a section on Student Activities. There are over 200 different student activities that can be used in classrooms. These student activities include texts, videos, and interactive maps.

EDSITEment! is easily one of the best resources for teachers and instructors.

State Online History Encyclopedias and Archive Collections:

Many states have created online history websites through state historical organizations, state universities, university presses, and state humanities organizations. Some of the sites are fantastic and others are pretty underwhelming. Still, if you need your students to write about your state or a doing a state-based history project, it can be a good place to explore first. Additionally, some states have websites that can direct students to archives but most of these archives are not online. I am also concerned that some of the state resources for archives are not considered secure by google. While that is both concerning and embarrassing, it probably should not prevent students from using the websites.

If I am missing a state history Encyclopedia or history portal - please send me an email - [email protected] - so I can add it.

• The DPLA: Digital Public Library of America The DPLA includes a number of Primary Source Sets that allow teachers and students to explore specific topics. Additionally, the site may also be helpful if your state lacks a solid history site because it includes resources from all over the country.
• Encyclopedia of Alabama
• Alaska Humanities Forum Alaska History & Cultural Studies
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas
• Online Archive of California - This is only an archive - no articles. Most of the archives do not have any online resources available.
• Calisphere - University of California This site is a collection of California university archives and libraries.
• Colorado Encyclopedia
• ConnecticutHistory.org
• DC History Center Includes a history blog focused on DC and links to archives.
• Floripedia: A Florida Encyclopedia
• New Georgia Encyclopedia
• 64 Parishes - Encyclopedia for Louisiana
• Maine: An Encyclopedia
• MNOpedia - Minnesota Encyclopedia
• The Mississippi Encyclopedia
• Missouri Encyclopedia
• Online Nevada Encyclopedia
• New York Heritage - Digital Collections
• Ohio Central History - Content is pretty limited
• The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
• Oregon Encyclopedia
• South Carolina Encyclopedia
• Tennessee Encyclopedia
• Utah History Encyclopedia
• Encyclopedia Virginia
• HistoryLink.org - Online Encyclopedia of Washington State
• The West Virginia Encyclopedia
• WyoHistory.org
• Smithsonian's History Explorer

The Smithsonian site includes teaching lessons, interactives, videos, museum artifacts, and other teacher resources. There is a remarkable amount of material to explore. The site also has an outstanding search function. The search function allows you to look for resources based on resources type (videos, artifacts, reference materials, etc.), grade, historical era, and cross-curricular connections (look for resources that touch on multiple subjects such as economics, science, etc.)

The United States National Archives The National Archives has a ton of resources on US history that focuses on primary source documents. Additionally, the Archives has created syllabi on how to teach students how to analyze primary sources. The Archives also created the DOCSTeach online tool for teaching archives from the National Archives.

The Archives has produced material that is primarily intended for middle and high school students. Here is an example of one of their Lesson Plans: Teaching Six Big Ideas in Constitution It creates several day ways to help to teach these documents.

• Library of Congress

Like the Smithsonian, the Libary of Congress is another outstanding United States government resource. The Library of Congress has multiple missions, but it has a teachers portal that allows you to browse materials and search for them more easily. It also has a search function that will help you find resources, but it isn't as good as the Smithsonian's search. It does allow you to search for content that satisfies Common Core and State materials. It also permits you to search for materials that fit organizational standards as set by the NCTE, AASL, NETS, NCSS and the NCSG.

• Chronicling America - Library Of Congress

Chronicling America is a digitized resource from the Libary of Congress and the National Endowment for the Arts. Chronicling America has a massive database of newspapers from all around the country. It is an outstanding place for students to learn how to use newspapers as a source for papers and history projects.

• The Stanford History Education Group

The Stanford History Education Group has created History Assessments of Thinking (HATS) that draw on the Library of Congress's digital resources. Here is a list of the HATS that Stanford has compiled. You can download the lesson plans from the site after you register (free) to the site. Typically, these HATS are critical writing assignments. The HATS use images or statements and to get students to write critically about the content. It is a fantastic way to add a writing assignment to cover materials that you have taught in class.

• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is an archive based in the New York Historical Society building in New York. Instead of relying on its 70,000 piece collection on American History it has become a resource for teachers, undergraduate, and graduate students, professors and writers. Its website has a blog called History Now that has articles, videos, online timelines, and information from the Institute's exhibitions.

The 50+ Issues from History Now typically focus on a single broad historical topic. The articles in that issue will help you dive deeper into specific historical issues such as US Immigration Laws, Voting Rights, Alexander Hamilton, and Civil Rights. Each item of History Now links to relevant videos, articles, and even lesson plans.

• National History Education Clearinghouse

TeachingHistory.org resource created by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It has a mixture of resources for teachers including teaching guides, lesson plan reviews, website reviews, history quizzes, guides to best practices, and history content. Teachinghistory.org has a ton of content, but you will need to do a deep dive into the site to find what you are looking for. Probably the most useful aspect of the Teachinghistory.org is its Website Reviews of various historical sites.

• Newseumed.org

Newseumed.org has a critical mission. It provides free resources "to cultivate the First Amendment and media literacy skills essential civic life." In the new social media world, students need to know how "to authenticate, analyze and evaluate information from a variety of sources." Over the past few years, it has become clear that Americans struggle to do this. Newseumed.org wants to help. To access Newseumed.org you do have to register with the site, but the materials are free.

Through its EDTOOLS feature, Newseum has numerous resources for history, government, and civics teachers. The two most useful tools are Critical Debates and Lesson Plans. Here an example of a Critical Debate entitled Is the System Fair? and a lesson plan called Introduction to the First Amendment: What's a Violation?

• Teaching with Historic Places

Teaching with Historic Places is a site run by the National Park Service. The site is focused on using the National Park and sites on the National Register of Historic Places as educational tools to teach history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects.

The site has created Lesson Plans, Writing Assignments, Beyond the Classroom Activities and a Teacher Lessons Portal. They do have lessons plans for all states, but this a new site and it is still a touch wonky. Once they work out the kinks, it will be a great resource.

• American Battlefield Trust

The American Battlefield Trust has created over 400 maps, videos, and articles that illustrate battles from the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Civil War. These maps, videos, and articles can be used to show what happened at over 400 battles. The site is exceedingly straightforward and informative.

• America in Class

The National Humanities Center is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to the advancement of the understanding of the humanities and is supported by approximately 50 universities, foundations, and companies created America in Class. The website provides curated primary source materials for United States history classes. These materials would be appropriate for both high school and college students. These materials are organized into thematic and time-based collections. For example, here is a link to the Toolbox The Triumph of Nationalism/The House Dividing: America 1815-1850 . The Toolbox contains materials for different topics, checklists, timelines, topic framing questions, and source material.

The materials on the site are curated, and the selections are outstanding. That provides a ton of exceptional sources and guidance that helps teachers use the materials for discussions, assignments or essays.

• The American Presidency Project

The American Presidency Project, non-profit and non-partisan, is the leading source of presidential documents on the internet hosted at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Messages and Papers of the Presidents: 1789-1929 The Public Papers of the Presidents: since 1929 The Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents: 1977-2009 The Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents: post-2009

• Voices of Democracy -- The U.S. Oratory Project

The Voices of Democracy is a web project that focuses on great speeches from American history. There is a journal, curriculum units (based on themes, Speakers, Authors and periods) and blog with short posts focused on crucial speeches. Typically, each speech part of the site will have either a video or text of the speech, an essay, teaching materials, and additional resources. Voices on Democracy also has an Grades 8-12 Educational Resource Guide that shows teachers how to use their materials and comply with Common Core Standards.

• Google Arts & Culture

Google Arts and Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform that allows teachers to not only connect with art in some of the best museums in the world, but also extensively covers fashion, performing arts, and world heritage sites. The site uses pictures and articles to tell unique stories about some of the most influential artists in the world. Here is a profile on Alvin Ailey and his choreography . Here's another project that introduces the art of Vermeer .

Google Arts and Culture would be a useful resource to introduce arts and culture into history or other humanities courses.

• PBS Learning Media

PBS Media is a resource that includes videos, interactive content, and lesson plans. The site has resources for a ton beyond history and social studies. The critical component of PBS Media is its wealth of videos that have been drawn from PBS. It has over 6,000 videos (K-13+) on various social studies topics for students.

• Digital Public Library of America

"The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is an all-digital library that aggregates metadata — or information describing an item — and thumbnails for millions of photographs, manuscripts, books, sounds, moving images, and more from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States." What does this mean? Essentially, it allows you to access sources from all over the world.

The DPLA has created the Primary Source Sets for teachers and instructors. The Source Sets explore historical topics with primary sources and teaching guides. You can search for the Source Sets either through the site's search function or on the Primary Source Sets page. On the Source Sets page, you can search based on subject, periods or recently added. For example, the Scopes Trial Source Set includes photos of the people involved in the trial, excerpts from the Tennessee biology textbooks, records of witness testimony, and even a political cartoon.

• Civil Rights Movement Primary Sources

These resources were collected by Professor Evan Faulkenbury ( @evanfaulkenbury ) for his students. Each of these collections explores a different aspect of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Freedom Summer (1964) Collection - Wisconsin Historical Society SNCC Digital Gateway KZSU Project South Interviews - Stanford University Libraries Complete interviews from Eyes on the Prize - Washington University in St. Louis Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Papers - Mississippi Department of MDAH Archives and History Freedom Summer Interviews - University of Florida Civil Rights Digital Library - University System of Georgia Southern Oral History Project Black Panther sources - Michigan State University Who Speaks for the Negro? - Interviews - Vanderbilt University FBI records on Civil Rights - The Federal Bureau of Investigation Malcolm X Project - Columbia University Green Book Digital Archive - New York Public Library NY Black Freedom Struggle - Rochester University Umbra - Umbra Search African American History Goin' North - West Chester University Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina - The North Carolina Digital Collections from the State Library of North Carolina and the State Archives of North Carolina

• National Archives - Educator Resources

The National Archives is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for maintaining and documenting government and historical records. The National Archives has been a resource for historians since its creation in 1934. The Archives has some resources available for teachers, but the DocsTeach.org is probably the most useful and readily accessible feature for teachers. DocsTeach.org is designed for educators to help them connect with the Archives resources.

• BBC History

BBC History site focuses on short interactive stories that mix charts, videos, pictures, and text boxes. The interactives are useful for teaching subjects quickly, but they lack the depth of other sites on this list. Regardless, the interactives are fun and entertaining. Here's a link to an interactive on The London Blitz .

• Zinn Education Project

The Zinn Education Project is inspired by Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States which emphasized the role of working people, women, people of color and the organized social movements that helped shape history. Zinn project is much less focused on politics that can take a central role in the history courses. The Zinn Education Project has a Teaching Materials portal that helps teachers find resources based on periods, themes, resource type, or grade level. It also has a keyword search function if you know what you are looking for. You can search for different types of resources including teaching activities, articles, profiles, posters, audio clips, websites, and many others. Here is an example of a Teaching Activity entitled COINTELPRO: Teaching the FBI's war on the Black Freedom Movement .

• Ancient History Encyclopedia

The Ancient History Encyclopedia is a carefully curated encyclopedia covering the ancient world history. The encyclopedia publishes articles, definitions, timelines, maps, and has a search function. If your students are studying ancient history, this is a good place to start. Unlike Wikipedia, the articles are written and edited by experts in their fields.

• History Blogs

Nursing Clio - Nursing Clio describes itself as "open access, peer-reviewed, collaborative blog project that ties historical scholarship to present-day issues related to gender and medicine. Bodies, reproductive rights, and health care are often at the center of social, cultural, and political debates. We believe the issues that dominate today’s headlines and affect our daily lives reach far back into the past — that the personal is historical." Tropics of Meta - Tropics of Meta describes itself as a site dedicated to offering "a fresh perspective on history, current events, popular culture, and issues in the academic world. Founded in 2010, ToM has published over 700 essays by historians, social scientists, artists, filmmakers, and creative writers both within and outside the academy, giving voice to communities across the United States and the world." We're History - "We’re History tells the story of America and how the country became what it is today. Written by scholars, it is real history with all its triumphs, failures, twists, and ironies. Our contributors come from inside and outside of academia, but they are all committed to the idea that it is history that has made us who we are." We're History has a ton of great articles addressing different aspects of American History. The Junto - The Junto "Americanists dedicated to providing content of general interest to other early Americanists and those interested in early American history, as well as a forum for discussion of relevant historical and academic topics." Points: The Blog of the Alcohol and Drugs History Society - The Points Blog "is an academic group blog that brings together scholars with wide-ranging expertise with the goal of producing original and thoughtful reflections on the history of alcohol and drugs, the web of policy surrounding them, and their place in popular culture." Process: A Blog for American History - "Process—the blog of the Organization of American Historians, The Journal of American History, and The American Historian—strives to engage professional historians and general readers in a better understanding of U.S. history." U.S. History Scene - This site is a fantastic resource for articles, primary sources, syllabi, and reading list covering American History. It describes itself as "a multimedia education website composed of historians and educators at over fifty universities dedicated to teaching the American past in a global context. Our goal is to use innovative open source technology and live digital curriculum to democratize learning and help history lovers master United States history in a way that is entertaining, relevant, and intuitive." Balkinization - Balkinization publishes articles that address current constitutional and legal issues with a historical lens. The authors are a collection of historians and law professors. They often explain currently relevant legal questions that are in the news. If there is a legal question dominating the headlines there is a good chance there is an in Balkinization on that topic. The only downside is that the site is somewhat difficult to use but it does have a useful search function.

• Organization of American Historians Teaching Resources

The Organization of American Historians has some tools for high school and college-level United States history courses, but the material is primarily for members of the OAH. Memberships range in price from $45 (for students), $60 (K-12 Educators), and up to $245 (income over $150,000). The membership includes access to several OAH publications and US History Teaching Units. While there is a rationale to join the OAH as if you are United States history teacher, it probably cannot be justified based solely on the materials offered by the organization.

• American Historical Association - Teaching Resources for Historians

The American Historical Association (AHA), the largest history organization in the United States, has a much rich assortment of material for teachers and instructors. Like the OAH, the AHA is a member organization and has some excellent resources on their website. They offer a mixture of classroom materials, discussions of teaching, plagiarism and a Teaching and Learning History community portal. Like the OAH, some materials will require a membership. Membership for K-12 teachers costs $59 a year.

• Best History Websites

The Best History Sites from EdTechteacher is probably the most comprehensive listing of websites for teachers in different history fields. Despite being comprehensive, it is difficult to recommend the site because it does not appear to be updated regularly. If you start going through the site, you will find numerous dead or misdirected links. It is especially frustrating when you are looking for sources on World, Latin American, European, Asian, and African history courses. Still, it may be useful if you are willing to poke around the site.

• Online History Courses

Free online college-level history courses are an excellent resource for teachers and instructors. They can be used as a refresher for material that you haven't studied in years or at all. Many of the sites also include portals for educators. Most of the online courses break them up into individually sub-titled lectures. Instead of taking an entire course you can watch a specific lecture on a single topic or use the resources from the class (such as lecture slides, images readings, and assignments) in your class. The number of history courses available has grown dramatically.

Most of the courses on the sites below will allow you to access all its materials (videotaped lectures, materials, images, slides, etc.), but a few don't. The videotaped lectures may be only available when the course is scheduled. Courses may also only be available for a limited period.

Most of the online courses will require you to register, and they will most likely send your email. Typically, this process is pretty painless. Additionally, some organizations will also charge a fee if you need a certificate of completion from the site. For example, EdX.org charges fees ranging from $49-99 to get a verified certificate of completion. Other sites will ask for a donation to support their programs.

Future Learn, Coursera and edX are currently the best options from this list because they get their course from multiple universities. The Yale and MIT sites appear to lack full institutional support. There numerous also other providers and some may be better options than those listed here, but the world of online courses seems to be evolving. Unfortunately, history courses are not a primary part of their offerings. Most of the sites are focusing on skills such as IT specializations and computer programing.

edX.org - edX.org has several history classes available from multiple universities across the including Columbia, Harvard, Purdue, Peking, and others. They have one of the widest selections of course. Future Learn History Courses - Future Learn has a focus on European and British History, and the courses are fairly eclectic (i.e., Hadrian's Wall, The Fall of the Roman Republic, and Why Opera Matters). As of January 2019, the site had 29 different courses available. They also have paid online degree programs for students. Coursera.org - Coursera.org is one of the largest providers of online courses in the world. It has 182 universities and organizations partnering with it. This feature allows Cousera to offer over 100 history or history-related courses. The courses offered are incredibly diverse. The courses include videos, readings, and quizzes. Some classes can be completed for free, but others are behind paywalls. You can either pay for courses individually or buy a monthly subscription. Udemy - Udemy is the largest online course provider in the world. They offer free courses, but most of them cost $9.99 or more. Their history section is relatively limited. Additionally, more than half of the classes are not in taught in English. MIT Open Courseware - MIT Open Courseware has numerous history courses, but they have not added any new courses since 2017. The courses are structured more like classes and are less user-friendly. The courses also do not appear to have videotaped lectures available after the course has finished. Still, the courses do have lecture slides and additional information for educators. Open Yale Courses History Courses - The Open Yale Courses offer free complete courses taught by Yale History professors, but it only has four history courses available.

• Reacting to the Past

Reacting to the Past is a teaching technique that instead of relying on lectures and notes, uses elaborate role-playing games based on classic texts that require students to play historical characters. Instead of observing a lecture, students are actively working within the confines of the philosophical and intellectual beliefs of the historical figures they are portraying. Reacting to the Past requires students to explore the complicated historical situations that people lived through. As part of the game, students prepare speeches, write papers, and other public presentations to try and win the game.

Reacting to the Past was created by Mark C. Carnes at Barnard College in the 1990s. So far, it has been implemented at hundreds of colleges and universities across the United States. High schools have also started introducing Reacting to the Past in the classroom. 30+ Reacting games have been published by W.W. Norton & Co., the University of North Carolina Press and the Reacting Consortium Press. In addition to the published games, there are over 100 games currently in development.

Unlike other sites on this list, Reacting to the Past requires preparation by teachers to implement it into the classroom successfully. Therefore, Reacting has numerous conferences to help teachers add it to their curriculum. The Reacting site has an article and several videos explaining how Reacting to the Past was incorporated into the Freshman curriculum at the University of Oregon.

Genealogy Explained: Military Records

Genealogy Explained has an excellent Guide for researching military records. While the guide focuses on searching military records for genealogical purposes, these records could be used for a number of different types of historical research projects. The article explains how to use the free FamilySearch.org service. The links on the guide go directly to the section on United States veterans.

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Digital technologies have expanded the reach of scholarship in the way scholars communicate their research to an audience and present findings, as well as influencing the questions they ask in planning a research project. Text analysis, data and text mining, mapping, data visualization, and a variety of other digital methods and tools make forms of research beyond the traditional text-based article or monograph possible, while also encouraging scholars to consider questions of data storage, visual presentation, and user engagement. Here, you can find resources on getting started in digital history, articles on doing digital history, and projects of interest. 

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Get the facts about transgender & non-binary athletes.

Transgender and non-binary people, in particular trans and non-binary student athletes, are under attack by politicians at all levels of government, as well as in the media. 2021 officially surpassed 2015 as the worst year for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in recent history, with 27 anti-LGBTQ+ bills enacted. 2022 looks to be continuing this trend, with the first weeks of the year seeing anti-LGBTQ+ bills under consideration in state legislatures across the country. More than 55 directly target transgender girls and women in sports and would prevent them from playing on the team that aligns with their gender identity.

When reporting on issues related to transgender and gender non-confirming people, please use the Human Rights Campaign’s Brief Guide to Getting Transgender Coverage Right in order to ensure inclusive and accurate coverage. In addition, if you’re reporting on trans youth in sports, please find some facts and resources below.

Transgender and non-binary people have been under attack for years - the pivot to sports is yet another front in this fight.

For the last two decades, anti-LGBTQ+ politicians have attempted to sow disinformation about LGBTQ+ people’s rights to score cheap political points with their base. Transgender and non-binary people have been the target of many of these attacks, especially since the 2015 state legislative sessions. Then, so-called bathroom bills were a major focus and politicians lied about threats to women and girls’ safety that never materialized. Today, trans and non-binary youth are the target of these attacks, with baseless arguments about sports participation and misinformation about affirming healthcare access .

At least 35 of the more than 250 bills proposed in 2021 would unnecessarily regulate or prohibit transgender youth from being able to access best-practice, age-appropriate, gender-affirming medical care. So far, two bills of this kind have become law -- in Arkansas , when the state House and Senate overrode Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto of House Bill 1570, which is aimed at denying medically-necessary, gender-affirming services to transgender youth, and in Tennessee , when Republican Governor Bill Lee signed SB 126, which unnecessarily regulates life-saving, best practice medical care for transgender youth. Such bills have proliferated in the last two years, despite no evidence that there has been any issue with youth receiving inappropriate care. In fact, these bills are opposed by organizations dedicated to children’s health, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the National Association of Social Workers, and more.

These attacks on transgender youth generally, and trans athletes specifically, are fueled by discrimination, not facts . These bills represent a cruel effort to further stigmatize and discriminate against LGBTQ+ people across the country, specifically trans youth who simply want to live as their true selves and grow into who they are. After failing to prohibit trans and non-binary people’s access to restrooms, legislators have pivoted to using misinformation about sports as the next way to score political points.

Proponents of anti-trans sports bans are relying on stereotypes that have sexist implications.

While it may be true that a particular transgender youth has physical abilities that help them in the sport of their choice (like height, which is helpful in volleyball for instance), natural variations in physical characteristics are part of sports, especially at younger ages. Many of these bills would govern play at elementary and middle school as well as high school, when all youth’s bodies are undergoing tremendous change at significantly varying speeds. In other sports, a smaller physique might be to an athlete’s advantage. And, like all other youth, trans youth are short and tall, strong and not, fast and slow.

Breaking down these stereotypes also breaks down these arguments. Transgender girls are not new, and they’re not taking over girls’ sports. In fact, transgender youth:

are a small part of the overall population in schools, and only about half of trans youth identify as girls ( opponents don’t seem as interested in trans boys, who they assume will not be able to compete with cisgender boys - a sexist assumption),

just like other other youth, have varying interest in playing sports,

just like other youth, will have varying degrees of physical ability and attributes that may/may not lend themselves to success in the sport of their choice,

just like all other youth, will have varying degrees of seriousness and commitment to sports.

Transgender youth already face very high levels of discrimination, including in school.

Transgender youth experience all kinds of mistreatment (such as harassment, harsher discipline, or physical or sexual assault) because of their gender identity. There are many very real challenges that face transgender youth, including mistreatment in schools, family rejection, threats of physical violence, and other discrimination. Anti-trans sports bans risk further marginalizing young people who already face tremendous challenges in school. Proponents of these bans suggest that trans athletes are pretending to be trans in order to do well at sports - ignoring entirely the incredible stigma trans youth face.

Twenty states, the IOC, and the NCAA have allowed trans athletes to play sports for decades, with no problems.

If there was truly an existential issue with transgender athletes competing in sports, these bodies would be taking more specific steps to address it. What we’re actually seeing is the opposite - legislators using transgender youth as a culture war talking point are attempting to put into place bans that nobody is asking for. The NCAA’s recent change to remove non-discrimination protections from its constitution and defer to IOC guidelines was a political decision that abdicates their responsibility to protect student athletes, but it does not meaningfully change the current state of play: transgender students can play sports, with specific requirements in place for each sport.

Playing sports comes with well-known academic, emotional, mental, and social benefits. Transgender youth should not be shut off from these opportunities.

Playing sports helps young people maintain good physical health, build self-confidence and self-esteem, grow leadership skills, understand the value of teamwork, and much more, according to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, & Nutritional Science .

Numerous athletes at both the amateur and professional level have spoken out in support of their transgender teammates and competitors.

These athletes include Women’s World Cup champion soccer player Megan Rapinoe , tennis icon Billie Jean King , Stanford swimmer Brooke Forde , NBA star Dwyane Wade , Canadian soccer phenom Erin McLeod , WNBA star Napheesa Collier , and many more. Additionally, sports organizations like the Ivy League , the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA), and others have spoken out publicly to defend trans people’s presence in sports.

For more information, please visit hrc.org/transgender , HRC’s Transgender and Non-Binary People FAQ and HRC’s Brief Guide to Getting Transgender Coverage Right .

Related Resources

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HRC’s Brief Guide to Reporting on Transgender Individuals

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