Library Guides: US History: Web Resources

Oral History Websites of Interest

Oral History Association
"...a continuing effort to spread the word about the value of oral history as a multidisciplinary research tool..."
UCLA Library Special Collections-UCLA Center for Oral History Research
UTSA Oral History Project
Interactive History Project-PAC

Just for Fun

Forebears Research your family's surname and its geographic roots

Recommended by PAC Professors

Democracy in America: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Introduction

The Eli Whitney Museum and Workshop Named after the inventor of the cotton gin, this museum is an experimental learning workshop for students, teachers, and families that collects, interprets, and teaches experiments that are the roots of design and invention. You can see how the cotton gin works here.

University of Massachusetts Lowell Library: Center for Lowell Studies Established in 1971 to preserve and provide access to local history. Find primary source items like this transcript of a letter from a young woman working in a textile mill.

DoHistory Shows you how to piece together the past from the fragments that survived.

Useful Websites

Library of Congress
An outstanding and invaluable site for American history and general studies. Contains primary and secondary documents, exhibits, map collections, prints and photographs, sound recordings and motion pictures. The Library of Congress American Memory Historical Collections, a must-see, contains the bulk of digitalized materials, but the Exhibitions Gallery is enticing and informative as well. The Library of Congress also offers a Learning Page that provides activities, tools, ideas, and features fo

The Library of Congress and American Memory
An outstanding resource for American history and general studies. Included are multimedia collections of photographs, recorded sound, moving pictures, and digitized text.
Our Documents
Offers 100 milestone documents, compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration, and drawn primarily from its nationwide holdings, that chronicle United States history from 1776 to 1965.
PBS Online
A great source for information on a myriad of historical events and personalities. PBS's assorted and diverse web exhibits supplement their television series and generally include a summary of each episode, interviews (often with sound bites), a timeline, primary sources, a glossary, photos, maps, and links to relevant sites. PBS productions include American Experience, Frontline and People's Century.
The Price of Freedom: Americans at War
This Smithsonian website skillfully integrates Flash video and text to examine armed conflicts involving the U.S. from the Revolutionary War to the war in Iraq. Each conflict contains a brief video clip, statistical information, and a set of artifacts. There is also a Civil War mystery, an exhibition self-guide, and a teacher's guide. The New American Roles (1899-present) section contains an introductory movie and short essay on the conflict as well as historic images and artifacts
History Matters
Designed for high school and college teachers and students, History Matters serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history. Created by the American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University).
Academic Index History Links
"Academic Index is a scholarly academic search engine accessing only websites previously selected by librarians, teachers and educational consortia".

Book Breaks - Gilder Lehrman Institute

Book Breaks

Every Sunday at 2pm ET, Gilder Lehrman Book Breaks features the most exciting history scholars in America discussing their books live with Book Breaks hosts, followed by Q& A with home audiences.

From Books Breaks- The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

The Immigrant Experience

Ellis Island (from the National Park Service)
Learn about this historic landmark, part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. The website offers access to oral histories, historical photographs, and information to help research ancestors.

Tenement Museum
Preserves and interprets the history of immigration through the personal experiences of the generations of newcomers who settled in and built lives on Manhattan's Lower East Side, America's iconic immigrant neighborhood.

History of Immigration - Library of Congress
This multi-part presentation includes a section for each of the nations from which the largest numbers of people emigrated to the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Angel Island: Li Keng Wong's Story
In 1933, seven-year-old Li Keng Wong's life changed. Her father decided to move his family from a small village in China to the Chinatown in Oakland, California. Now, Li Keng will tell you her story from 70 years ago.

Immigration Timeline
A timeline showing forces behind immigration and their impact on the immigrant experience.