Group items tagged

After 1500, a web of maritime trade linked Western Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Thousands of ships carried explorers, merchants, and migrants from Europe to the Americas. They also transported millions of enslaved men and women from Africa. Vessels bound back to Europe carried gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, rice, and other cargoes, along with returning travelers. Every crossing brought new encounters between people, customs, and ways of life, ultimately creating entirely new cultures in the Americas. The maritime web connected the lives of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic.

Homefront America in WW II A Document Based Question by Peter Pappas This lesson improves content reading comprehension with an engaging array of source documents - including journals, maps, photos, posters, cartoons, historic data and artifacts. It is framed around essential questions that link the past and present and invite students to reflect on parallel developments in contemporary America.

Nearly 7000 images from early America which you can view in a cool viewer that opens up in a new tab/window. Very groovy.

Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.

"Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology."

A very good collection of primary source materials on early America.

1492. Columbus. The date and the name provoke many questions related to the linking of very different parts of the world, the Western Hemisphere and the Mediterranean. What was life like in those areas before 1492? What spurred European expansion? How did European, African and American peoples react to each other? What were some of the immediate results of these contacts?1492: AN ONGOING VOYAGE addresses such questions by examining the rich mixture of societies coexisting in five areas of this hemisphere before European arrival. It then surveys the polyglot Mediterranean world at a dynamic turning point in its development. The exhibition examines the first sustained contacts between American people and European explorers, conquerors and settlers from 1492 to 1600. During this period, in the wake of Columbus's voyages, Africans also arrived in the hemisphere, usually as slaves. All of these encounters, some brutal and traumatic, others more gradual, irreversibly changed the way in which peoples in the Americas led their lives. The dramatic events following 1492 set the stage for numerous cultural interactions in the Americas which are still in progress - a complex and ongoing voyage.

"The Mid-Atlantic region of North America - stretching from New York south to Virginia - was a pivotal area in the early development of the American colonies and the United States. This website looks at this region and its history through maps created up to 1850." Cool.

The Mid-Atlantic region of North America - stretching from New York south to Virginia - was a pivotal area in the early development of the American colonies and the United States. This website looks at this region and its history through maps created up to 1850

An excellent site containing primary sources on early America (or at least the English-speaking part of it). Seems to focus mainly on the C18th.

"Bound for Glory: America in Color is the first major exhibition of the little known color images taken by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA/OWI). Comprised of seventy digital prints made from color transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943, this exhibition reveals a surprisingly vibrant world that has typically been viewed only through black-and-white images."

Might be useful in showing your students that everything before the 1950s didn't happen in black and white. A humbly titled collection.

"Chronicling America provides free access to more than a million historic American newspaper pages. Listed here are topics widely covered in the American press of the time. We will be adding more topics on a regular basis."

Again, thought I'd added this one. Oh well. Well-organised set of collections.

"Transportation transformed America. Choose from these three interconnected routes to explore how transportation shaped our lives, landscapes, culture, and communities. "

Video shorts from the History Channel: America: The Story Of Us

An extensive collection of primary source materials relating to the Hispanic exploration of the Americas.

Huge digital collection of historic newspapers by the Library of Congress!

"Amerigo Vespucci (1452-1512): Account of His First Voyage, 1497 Amerigo Vespucci (born in Florence in 1452), whose name was given to the American continents by Waldsmuller in 1507, worked in Seville (where he died) in the business house which fitted out Columbus' second expedition. Here he gives an account of the first of his own four voyages. If his claims are accurate he reached the mainland of the Americas shortly before Cabot, and at least 14 months before Columbus. Letter of Amerigo Vespucci To Pier Soderini, Gonfalonier of the Republic of Florence"

This is the anthropological artfefacts databast at the Smithsonian Museum. Seems to especially cover the Americas and Egypt, although probably has stuff from all over the place and you'd expect it to be well-organised. Over 2 million artefacts.

This provides a database of archaeological sites currently under excavation, including images of artefacts and some historical information. You search by region and then get a list of sites currently being worked on, so it can be a bit time-consuming but would be excellent for student research.

Contains 150 early movies showing American past-times and everyday life from the turn of the 20th Century.