800 years ago the lower Mississippi Delta was home to some of the most highly organized civilizations in the world. There were roads, commerce, and metropolises anchored by awe-inspiring earthen monuments. This National Park Service “virtual tour” allows users to explore the lives of the moundbuilders of the Eastern Woodlands.

This site provides a variety of articles about life in Cahokia, a remarkable urban center that had 20,000-25,000 inhabitants during the

Histories, currently of 49 tribes, which provide extensive information about the culture, social organization, language, and histories of Native Americans.

This interactive instructional module compares and contrasts Native American and European religions in order to study how they interacted in early America.

A companion site to the PBS television documentary “Africans in America,” which explores the history of the Atlantic slave trade and the origins of American slavery during the period 1450-1750. The Narrative describes the history of the period; the Resource Bank provides annotated images, documents, biographies, and commentaries by historians; and a Teacher's Guide helps instructors integrate the materials into their classroom.

This Library of Congress exhibit looks at the religious persecution in Europe that drove so many to the shores of British North America where these new settlers established colonies often centered on passionate religious convictions;

This site, created by the Association for the Preservation of Virginian Antiquities, provides a brief history of Jamestown, a list of early settlers, and a timeline of events leading up to the settlement of Jamestown.

The Digital Library Program has digitized more than 2.2 million original documents, photographs, and maps, and produced more than 80 fully-searchable databases, indexes, and electronic finding aids.

Historian Patricia U. Bonomi examines the factors that contributed to religious tolerance in the Middle Colonies.

This site contains a history of the Mayflower, representations of the ship, documents related to the ship’s voyage, and information about the passengers’ wills. It also discusses such topics as the lives of women and girls in Plymouth, the “first” Thanksgiving, crime and punishment of crime in the colony, and the life of Tisquantum (Squanto).

This site tells the story of Plymouth Colony from 1620 to 1692. 17th-century Wampanoag Clothing describes and illustrates the clothing worn by the Native Wampanoag in the 17th century. Pilgrim Clothing illustrates the clothing worn by the Pilgrims. Emigration of the Pilgrims tells the story of the Pilgrims, including life in England, their flight into and life in Holland and their emigration to the "New World." The Rising Generation: Children in Plymouth Colony explores childhood in 17th-century New England.

Historian Christine Leigh Heryman offers a concise history of the Puritians and what they believed.

This essay assesses a variety of perspectives on the single most intensively studied event in colonial North American history.

A multimedia introduction to events in Salem in 1692 created by the National Geographic.

This site include transcripts of trial records and examinations of six accused witches; arrest warrant of two witches (image and text); petitions of two convicted witches awaiting execution; petitions for compensation, and a decision concerning compensation; and two letters of Gov. William Phips on the execution of justice in Salem.

The section Meet the People allows user learn about their struggles and triumphs of early Virginians. In Experience Colonial Life, users explore the trades, politics, and other aspects of 18th-century living. In See the Places, users learn about their history as they tour colonial Virginia. The Colonial Dateline highlights events from 1750-1783. A Historical Glossary identifies important terms, events, and individuals in colonial history. Also available is a biographical study of Captain John Smith that separates the man from myth.

Handouts for teachers, created by the National Park Service, deal with such subjects as John Smith, Pocahontas, comparing Jamestown and Plymouth, the role of women at Jamestown, work, and Bacon’s Rebellion.

The First Great Awakening explores the causes of this powerful surge of religious zeal; Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies examines the factors that contributed to religious tolerance in this region; The Church of England examines the history of this religious group in the colonies; Religion, Women, and the Family examines how religion shaped the way people related to their spouses and raised their children; and Religion and the American Revolution analyzes the role of religion in the coming of the Revolution.

This Website allows users to explore the process of piecing together the lives of ordinary people in the past. Focusing on the life of Martha Ballard, a midwife and healer, as revealed in her diary, the site teaches students to interpret fragments that survive from a period of history The site offers two in-depth, interactive examples of how to do history: Doing History: One Rape. Two Stories. and Martha and a Man-Midwife. It also provides material on: Genealogy, How to Use Primary Sources, Midwifery and Herbal Medicine, Teaching with this Web site, Diaries, Films about the Past.

This Library of Congress exhibit challenges the view that religious zeal was declining during the eighteenth century.

This site contains succinct essays on Education for Boys and Girls, Music and Dance, Indentured Servants and Transported Convicts, Slavery, Medicine and Health, and Leisure Time and Games.

This site, created by the Notre Dame University’s Special Collections, examines the value of money in the American colonies.

A site, created by PBS Online to supplement the television documentary “Africans in America,” which explores the impact of the revolutionary era on the lives of African Americans. It examines the African American role in the war and the meaning of the Constitution for slavery. The Narrative describes the history of the period; the Resource Bank Contents, which provides annotated images, documents, biographies, and commentaries by historians; and a Teacher's Guide, to help instructors integrate the materials into their classroom.

This site offers lyrics and sound clips from songs of the Colonial and Revolutionary eras.

presents images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia legislature between 1774 and 1802 from more than eighty counties and cities.

This Library of Congress site illustrates the contribution of religious leaders and religious ideas to the coming of the War of independence.

The Clement Library at the University of Michigan presents Letters, Stories, Methods, People, Routes, and a Timeline.

Handouts for teachers, created by the National Park Service, on the siege of Yorktown.

An extensive collection of primary source documents dealing with the Revolutionary Era placed online by the Avalon Project of the Yale Law School.

This Library of Congress site contains 274 documents relating to the work of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

An on-line version of the Federalist Papers, the essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison to rally support for the ratification of the Constitution.

Information on Franklin’s life, his family life, and his place in the history of science, created by the Franklin Institute.

This site contains an online tour of Mount Vernon, a lesson plan about George Washington’s life, and a online exhibit about George Washington and slavery.

A leading authority on George Washington examines his place in the controversy over slavery.

A documentary survey of the life of Benjamin Franklin, maintained by J.A. Leo Lemay, Professor of Colonial American Literature at University of Delaware. The site contains a year-by-year chronology of Franklin’s life, as well as a searchable database of Franklin’s collected writings.

This site examines Hamilton’s background, his experience during the revolutionary war, his political battles, and changes in his image over time.

Seven generations of oral histories of the descendants of Monticello’s slaves.

This set of links provides easy access to Jefferson’s writings on the World Wide Web.

The companion site to the PBS Frontline program covering the controversy regarding Thomas Jefferson and his relationship with Sally Hemings, his slave, contains clips from the television show, as well as scientific and historical evidence surrounding the story.

This site provides information about Jefferson’s home and the people who worked on his plantation.

This Website, a supplement to the Public Broadcasting Service series on Jefferson, contains transcripts of interviews with scholars evaluating Jefferson’s life and ideas as well as lesson plans designed to help students analyze Enlightenment ideas in the classroom.

Links to biographical resources, writings, time lines, and interpretations by historians available on the World Wide Web.

This Library of Congress exhibit includes: Religion and the Congress of the Confederation, which examines the policies of America’s first national government toward religion; Religion and the State Governments, which illuminates the policies of the revolutionary state governments toward religion, ranging from disestablishment in Virginia to multiple establishments in New England states; Religion and the Federal Government, which focuses on the status of religion in the new federal government; and Republican Religion which traces the fortunes of religion

A July 1873 article from The Atlantic by historian James Parton.

This C-Span site contains extensive information about Tocqueville's visit to the United States and his observations about democracy.

Documents, speeches, and images from the Massachusetts Senator’s alma mater, Dartmouth College.

Primary sources on religion, transportation, communication, education, slavery and antislavery, manners, violence, and many other topics.

A detailed timeline connected to primary source documents dealing with the Jacksonian Era.

The Seminole Indians of Florida present their own history, including the story of Seminole resistance to the removal policy.

This site identifies the key people, terms, events, and consequences of the removal of the Cherokees from Western Georgia.

Laurie Maffly-Kipp, a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina examines the fusion of African and Christian religious beliefs and practices.

Despite formidable odds, many enslaved African American ran away from slavery. Leon Litwack, the Morrison Professor of American History at the University of California at Berkeley, assesses the frequency of flight from slavery, the forms that this took, and the motives that precipitated flight.

Paul Finkelman, a leading legal authority on slavery, looks at how lawyers and jurists were able to reconcile slavery with the nation’s commitment to liberty and equality.

An impressive “multimedia textbook” created by a high school advanced placement class that covers such topics as resistance, antislavery, interpretations of slavery, supplemented with primary sources.

An 1861 account of Denmark Vesey’s attempted insurrection by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, published in The Atlantic. Also see “Denmark Vesey: Forgotten Hero,” http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/vesey.htm.

This National Park Service site provides a general overview of the Underground Railroad, with a brief discussion of slavery and abolitionism, escape routes used by slaves.

The slave letters from the Duke University Library’s Special Collections provide a rare firsthand glimpse into the lives of slaves and the relationships they had with their owners.

This site, a supplement to the PBS series, covers the years 1831-1865, and provides primary source documents and commentary from leading historians dealing with such topics as the the material conditions of slave life, the impact of slavery on the family, abolition, the Fugitive Slave Law, Bleeding Kansas, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and wartime emancipation.

This site contains over 500 primary documents including court documents, journal entries, and newspaper stories dealing with the Amistad Affair, which began as a shipboard revolt off the coast of Cuba and resulted in a protracted legal battle over slavery and the slave trade.

An interpretation of the slave narratives by William L. Andrews, a leading authority on the subject.

This site include all the narratives of fugitive and former slaves published in broadsides, pamphlets, or book form in English up to 1920 and many of the biographies of fugitive and former slaves published in English before 1920.

This site uses documents from the Duke University Library’s special collections to document the slave trade, slave labor, the impact of the Revolution on slavery, the nature of life in the slave community, and slavery’s collapse.

An up-to-date review of the literature of American slavery.

First person accounts, essays on the slave system, slave life, key events, and biographies of abolitionists.

This Library of Congress exhibit includes antislavery petitions, songs, children’s magazines, and other original sources documenting the struggle to abolish slavery.

An online exhibit created by the National Park Service featuring documents and artifacts at the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Washington, D.C.

This Library of Congress online exhibit includes primary sources that document the history of the movement to transport free blacks to Africa.

This site describes the shifting roles and perceptions of women in the decades before the Civil War.

This site provides information about the first women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, as well as women’s struggle for the vote.

This site examines women’s legal rights in the areas as divorce, abortion, and crime.

Speeches, letters, and other primary source documents relating to the first national women’s rights convention in Worcester, Mass., in 1850.

A high school curriculum, including activities, on the Irish famine.

A historical overview of Irish famine, supplemented with a bibliography.

This site contains primary sources documenting the history of the famine combined with stories, songs, and assessment of conflicting historical interpretations.

This site includes photographs and reporting and commentaries by Irish, English, and American observers.

The famine museum uses a combination of original documents and images from the Strokestown collection to explain the circumstances of the Irish Famine.

This site contains contemporary newspaper illustrations and articles about the Irish famine of 1845-1851 and includes early 100 engravings from the Illustrated London News, the Pictorial Times, and Punch.

Documents and articles on diverse life in Indiana and the United States before the Civil War, including women’s lives, clothing medicine and disease, food, transportation, and religion. Conner Prairie is a living history museum in Fishers, Indiana.

This site provide information about everyday life in New England during the early 19th century. Old Sturbridge Visitor articles is a searchable archive of articles from the Village's quarterly magazine. Mills and Waterpower provides animations and narrations to help explain how waterpower works. Children Everywhere explores the lives of children during the early 19th century. In Ask Jack, Old Sturbridge Village historian Jack Larkin answers questions aboout America's past. Tour of the Village offers an online tour of the Village complete with pictures, sounds, and panoramic views.

A virtual tour of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1830.

A daily log of the Donner Party's journey, including diary entries for each day, and quotes from original sources and histories.

This site contains a primer on the history of the Oregon trail; an Oregon Trail chronology, a Timeline of black history in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest; a discussion of Slavery in the Oregon Country and an explanation of the exclusion laws ; and biographical sketches of black pioneers and settlers in the Northwest

Links to documents, images, chronologies, and articles related to the California Gold Rush created by the Museum of the City of San Francisco.

This site contains a selection of 65,000, historic photographs from the collections of the Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Department and the Colorado Historical Society, including images Native Americans, pioneers, early railroads, mining, Denver and Colorado towns. Notable collections depict Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, the Clarence Moreledge photographs at Wounded Knee, and the Charles S. Lillybridge collection which depicts daily life in Denver around the turn of the century. Click here to see a list of photographers and subjects.

The companion site to the PBS series contains a time line, journals from the expedition, historians reflections on the expedition, information on the Indian peoples that the expedition encountered, and lesson plans and activities.

An on-line Research Center devoted to the history, traditions, tools, and mode of living, of the trappers, explorers, and traders, it contains diaries, letters, narratives, business records, maps, images, and art works relating to the Mountain Men during the years 1800-1850.

Companion site to the television documentary, The West. This site includes: Events in THE WEST, an interactive timeline tracing events from pre-Columbian times to the early twentieth century; Places inTHE WEST, an interactive map covering the territory and the times; People in THE WEST, an interactive biographical dictionary of historical figures; and Archives of THE WEST, documentary materials including memoirs, journals, letters, photos and transcripts

Books, diaries, autobiographies, and letters documenting the struggle over slavery in territorial Kansas.

The companion site to PBS’s American Experience broadcast contains a timeline, maps, glossary, and historical overviews on a variety of topics related to John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.

The full text of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and other important antebellum political documents.

The 16th President’s speeches, writings, and images.

This Library of Congress site provides a variety of visual images to document the assassination of the nation’s 16th President.

This site profiles six family members, 16 Cabinet officers and Vice Presidents, 21 Generals, 17 members of Congress, 18 staff members, and over two dozen other visitors.

This site traces the development of racial caricature in American political cartoons during the mid-19th century.

Articles from The Atlantic magazine from the 1860s onward dealing with Lincoln’s public speeches.

A chronology listing important events in the history of emancipation during the Civil War.

An interactive, illustrated time line of the major political, military, and social events that occurred during the Civil War.

Newspaper articles from August 1862 to May 1865 that record the African American experience during the Civil War.

Articles, illustrations, and cartoons from Harper’s Weekly dealing with slavery and emancipation from the late 1850s into Reconstruction.

A succinct summary of the war’s causes; the two sides’ goals, strengths, weaknesses, and strategies; and the major battles.

Classroom activities, focusing on women’s experience during the Civil War, appropriate for students of a variety of ages and ability levels that draw upon resources available on the World Wide Web and upon primary source documents.

Lesson plans and resources that allow teachers and students to study: Economic Differences Between The North and South; Sectionalism and Literature; Socioeconomic to Political Differences; Sectionalism Resulting in a Breakdown of Law and Order; Significance of the Election of 1860; Lincoln's Decision to Go to War; The Trial of Robert E. Lee; and Changing Confederate Attitudes, From the Female Perspective.

This is a computerized database containing very basic facts about servicemen who served on both sides during the Civil War; a list of regiments in both the Union and Confederate Armies; identifications and descriptions of 384 significant battles of the war;

The Duke University Library has made Civil War era diaries available online, which bring women’s wartime experience to life.

This National Archives site uses original documents to describe the struggles of black soldiers to defeat slavery and to win equal rights within the Union Army.

Letters from soldiers on both sides of the Civil War describe specific battles.

A collection of songs and poems from supporters of the Union and the Confederacy.

This collection of over a thousand photographs from the Library of Congress includes military personnel, preparations for battle, battle after-effects, portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, politicians, cultural figures, and a selection of enlisted men.

A collection of official documents, private correspondence, and pamphlets that focuses on Confederate life behind the battlelines.

This Library of Congress exhibit describes African American migrations out of the South, focusing on the Kansas Exodusters, western homesteading, and migration to Chicago.

A searchable collection of 300 pamphlets by African Americans mainly focusing on the period 1875 to 1900.