Black History Month Websites & Resources
Calisphere
Resource of the UC Libraries that offers a wealth of images and some documents related to United States, and California, history, in particular.
Center for History and New Media
This incredible site out of George Mason University sponsors many fascinating projects, including a September 11 Digital Archive. Amazing “tools” for teachers. Dedicated to digital history.
Crafting Freedom
Subject: The African American Experience
Historical Era: 19th Century
Grade: 3-8th grade
Description: Based around the experience of nine African Americans (“freedom crafters”), the site’s stories are designed for students in 3-5th grade and 6-8th grade (which can be modified for high school students as well) and are aligned with national standards for social studies and language arts. The website offers 36 lesson plans with accompanying videos, PDF slide shows, handouts, web-links and bibliographies. The website is limited in focus, yet offers rich lessons with a variety of teacher tools.
Emergence of Advertising in America: 1880-1920
A searchable database of over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. The materials, drawn from the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University, provide a significant and informative perspective on the early evolution of this most ubiquitous feature of modern American business and culture.
Exploring the West
Subject: History of the American West
Historical Era: 19th & 20th Century
Grade: 9-12
Description: Created through the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West at Stanford University, Exploring the West is designed to expand understanding of the mythic region for students grades 9-12. Organized into three broad units—Urban Growth, Maps, and Cowboys– the site offers both lesson plans (7-10 for each unit) and over 100 worksheets (based on primary sources) that align with national standards for history, geography and science. Although the subject matter is limited, the site is visually appealing and very useful for the classroom.
FDR Cartoon Archive
Collection of political cartoons creating during and about FDRs administration—good resources for New Deal legislation; also includes a section of teacher resources
Free Speech Movement Digital Archive
Documents the role of Mario Savio and other participants in the Free Speech Movement (University of California, Berkeley, September-December 1964), as well as its origins in political protest and civil rights movements and its legacy of political activism and educational reform.
Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia
Subject: American Frontier History
Historical era: 18th & 19th Century
Description: This website offers a look at frontier life in eighteenth and nineteenth century America, focusing on the experience of various migrant groups (Africans, English, Irish, German) and different periods of frontier settlement (1740s, 1820s, 1850s). The site offers good background information on subjects like farming practices, migration etc., but does not have accompanying educational resources for teachers.
History Matters
For high school and college U.S. history teachers. Includes lesson plans, syllabi, assignments, student work, and reference materials
Library of Congress American Memory
Extensive resource that includes primary sources, teacher-created lesson plans for all grades that draw on LOC collections, primary source exercises and activities; lesson plans and primary source collections span a huge range of U.S. history eras and topics American Memory from the Library of Congress
Makers
Makers has video clips of influential women in the contemporary women’s rights movement.
National Portrait Gallery Presidential Portraits
New York Public Library, Online Digital Archive
Out History
The outhistory.org website provides the history of LGBT in the United States. It offers documents, bibliographies, visual sources, timelines and more.
Organization of American Historians
The OAH is the major professional organization of American Historians. They hold annual conferences for scholars and teachers. See the Magazine of History–a wonderful quarterly journal for teachers that includes lesson plans and short, accessible essays written by scholars and teachers
Propaganda Critic
Video clips of post-WWII cartoons and films that highlight Cold War hysteria.
Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s History Explorer
Subject: American History
Historical Era: Colonial through Twentieth Century
Grade: K-12
Description: The Smithsonian’s History Explorer is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and useful history websites for educators. The site offers an abundant catalog of subjects with various means of searching specific topics ( i.e. a search engine that produces results based on keywords, grade level and source type i.e. artifact, primary source lesson, interactive website.) Information is also divided by historical era. The site is rich in primary sources and also links to view museum artifacts. Educators will appreciate the varied and numerous lesson plans (aligned with national standards) as well as the many resources for professional development (links to blogs, workshops etc.)
University of Nebraska, Omaha – “Teaching American History for Students”
Subject: U.S. History
Historical Era: Colonial through 2000
Description: This is a comprehensive website devoted to U.S. History from the age of exploration to modern day. It is very easy to use and includes 106 “Learning Modules” that offer historical context, several primary source documents and accompanying questions. The site also includes multimedia sources (movie clips, images, interactive graphs) on various topics. Information and sources are likewise divided by century and can be found with a very useful search engine. The content is likely most useful for high school or middle school students.
The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
A collection of well organized primary sources relating to San Francisco, California and U.S. western history. Nicely indexed by year or subject.
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, Teacher’s
This University of Binghamton, New York link takes you direct to the teacher’s corner, which includes a rich array of lesson ideas, document-based questions, and primary source documents on U.S. women’s history. The teacher’s corner is one piece of an enormous digital archive on U.S. women’s history. Extremely well-organized and user-friendly.
Fred Korematsu Institute
The Fred Korematsu Institute website is devoted to honoring the civil rights leader, Fred Korematsu who courageously protested his internment in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. Although losing his initial appeal to the Supreme Court in 1944, Korematsu was vindicated in 1983 when the case was overturned in his favor. The website provides a host of educational resources devoted both to Japanese Internment and contemporary civil rights issues. Significantly, it offers a comprehensive K-12 curriculum that includes teachers’ guides, power points, films, lesson plans and more.
Japanese Relocation Digital Archive
This website is part of Calisphere’s expansive gallery of primary sources. Focusing on Japanese Internment in World War II, the site provides various visual and textual sources, as well as timelines, lesson plans and background context information.
Constitutional Rights Foundation CRF Bill of Rights in Action archive (archive searchable by topic of newsletter of the Constitutional Rights Foundation, on many important court cases and current legal issues): http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/blog.html
Oyez
Multimedia Archive of the Supreme Court of the United States
Famous Trials (organized by date)
Landmark Cases by Streetlaw.org
Pro-Con.org
website with pros and cons of current issue
