This site provide political cartoon created by Herb Block from the last 70 years. Each political cartoon is accompanied by a description including the date published, materials used, and a description of current events. Political cartoons are a great references source to teaching history, satire, and communications.
Library of Congress has a wide variety of primary sources, including photographs, maps, audio, video and others. You can search by subject or by type of source, so if you want students to find photographs they can search for those only.
A digital record of American history. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle historical events, people, places, and ideas. Contains lots of teacher and student resources.
This is a collection of recordings made by various presidents between 1940 and 1973. It would be a great way for students to understand how a president thinks, how they use their power to influence others, and why they took certain actions.
This would be a great resource for high school students studying American history. It is a program that is putting secret recordings from presidential meetings online for public access. They are from 1940-1973, and could be useful for students doing projects on any president or historical event during that time.
Searchable military records and documents regarding war, conditions during war. Great for personal diaries and experiences, and shows images of source itself. Another thing I like about this site is that you can create a memorial page for an event or war. This would be a great project for my 21st century learners!
This website provides different audio clips year by year from the 20th century. The clips range from songs popular from a particular year to president's speeches. The site pairs the headlines of the year with audio. This website would be great for a look at history or a comparison of music over the years.
This would be a great site for more elementary aged students, there's a lot of good information but not enough to overwhelm younger kids. You can look at profiles of different famous people, get information on the states, look at different time periods and also look at games, hobbies and music, which would probably appeal to kids. One feature I thought was unique was where you could enter your birthday and it would bring up information for that date.
A great website to introduce young students to the world of non-fiction and primary source material. The website is colorful and easy to navigate. Students can learn about a variety of people, places and events in American history.
This is an interesting site that tries to present both sides of controversial issues. It uses journals, government documents, reports and other primary sources to present each side of the issue. Topics include education, health and medicine, politics, religion, sports, media and entertainment, money and business to name a few. This would be a great site for debate class, writing a persuasive speech, and use with current events.
This site provides a fun and interactive way for students to look at statistical information from the US government. It would help students with map skills and being able to read mathematical information (mean, median etc.) from a graph. There are links included for teachers and parents along with a link to "grown up stats" that links you to fedstats.gov.
Through audio files, this website is a collection of speeches in United States History from various political figures and activists . These sources give a glimpse into events and viewpoints in our history such as the Civil Rights Movement or the Challenger's disastrous flight. Middle School students will be able to listen to what was really said by that individual and what it meant for that time period.
American Rhetoric allows students to take a step into the past and feel as though they are living in a particular time period. I can imagine a class closing their eyes and listening to the powerful words of JFK in his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, or the determination in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Transcripts of each speech are also available on the site, as well as photos that help the students visualize the speaker and the time period. Extremely motivating!
This site has a collection of declassified information from testimonies, congressional records, and presidental papers. This website can help find primary government documents relating to events in American History. Audio clips, articles, and picture are included for a resource for ages 6-12.
This website focuses on the 1930s and the New Deal which was passed under the F.D.R.'s administration. Using a collection of letters, newspaper articles, photos, and documents, it has autobiographical stories and interviews about living during that time period. For grades 7-12, lesson plans and discussion panels are included in this resource, making it great for an American History class.
The New Deal Network is a website that focuses on the history of The Great Depression. Documents, photos, speeches, and articles can be found for teachers and students to use when researching this era of American History.
The Library of Congress website offers modules for teachers that can be used to gain information on how to use primary source documents with their students. Parts of these modules especially "Analyzing Primary Sources: Photographs and Prints" and "Analyzing Primary Sources: Maps" can be used for instruction with students. There is an interactive slideshow that shows students how to go through the process of analyzing primary sources such as prints, maps, and photos. This could be used by a teacher librarian or any teacher who is asking students to use primary sources in the form of prints, photos, and maps in class.
The United States Census Bureau provides population, economic, and geographic resources. This site would benefit students and educators in social studies, mathematics, economics, and geography. Interesting features include comparisons among resources and the U.S./World population clocks. There are various methods of accessing information (by state, region, use of data tools, etc.).
This site is dedicated to remembrance of Holocaust victims. It has some primary source archives like diaries, photographs, art work, and testimonies. It would be a great place to start some primary research for senior Holocaust projects.
This website is a great resource for students looking for information about the Holocaust. Besides their own archive of Holocaust material, they have links to several other sites which also have primary archival material. This would be a great palce for students to use for their senior Holocaust projects.
I thought this was a good resources for documents dealing with the Holocaust. The online exhibitions are on many different topics and cover a lot of information. They include photographs, video, audio, maps, and transcripts of interviews. Each subject topic also has listing of related publications and websites for each subject. There is also a Holocaust Encyclopedia and a learning site for students specifically where you can browse different subject areas or by document type. One that I found interesting was browsing by ID cards where you can look at different individuals and it would give their photo and story and background information.
At this website, users will find photos, diary entries, patents, and other artifacts documenting the inventions of the Wright brothers. I think that this site could be used by students in grades 4-12. Science and history teachers would find this site most useful. I thought that it was a little easier for younger users to navigate than some of the other sites I have found.
The National Archives site allows users to find primary sources within the seven categories found under "Research by Topic". Students and teachers would use this site mostly for social studies, history, and science. I was able to find mostly photos, but some other documents as well. This could be used for any age group, but I think most of the content would be for middle or high school students.
Find correspondence between Reagan and Soviet leaders as well as a draft of the speech Reagan delivered at the Berlin Wall. These are some of the primary sources available at the site. There is also a whole unit on Reagan and the Cold War as well as other events that took place during his presidency. High school students in history classes would benefit most from this site.
This site would be great for teaching middle to high school age students about primary sources. The homepage gives a great definition of what primary sources can be. The site has primary source for the Cold War, WWII, the Iraq War (2003), the Civil War, presidential papers, and Native Americans.