The following websites are excellent resources on a variety of historical topics. Included in this list are sites that offer access to primary source materials, and also those that provide general summaries of historical periods and events. This list is not comprehensive, and you may find other websites that are useful. If you are uncertain about the reliability or appropriateness of a website, please refer to the Evaluating Websites section.
The Adams Family Papers, which are housed at the library of the Massachusettes Historical Society, are a manuscript collection of documents belonging to John and Abigail Adams, and other members of the family. Selected documents from this collection are available online.
American Memory, created and maintained by the Library of Congress, is a digital library of manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, and moving images pertaining to U.S. historical events.
Archive of Early American Images, which is part of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University, is a digital collection of images of the colonization and imperialism in North and South America.
Chronicling America is a website created through a joint effort between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. The site indexes digitized copies of select American newspapers from 1836-1922.
Community & Conflicts is a digital library of journals, letters, and court cases documenting the Civil War west of the Mississippi River. Areas covered include Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Texas, and Louisiana. Users may search the collection by keyword, or browse by county, battle, or theme.
The Digital Public Library of America is an online portal to libraries, museums, and archives across the United States. Users may search the site by keyword, and narrow search results according to date, location, format, owing institution, or subject. The site also includes online exhibits on various American history topics.
Documenting the American South is a digital library of primary source materials on the history, literature and culture of the South. Topics covered include the Civil War, Southern literature, slavery, and the history of North Carolina. This initiative is sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Early Americas Digital Archive is an online library of writings about the Americas, with documents dating from 1492 to roughly 1820. The collection is made available by the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and the University of Maryland.
Correspondence and other writings of seven of seven major shapers of the United States:
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Over 185,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.
Part of Harvard University Library's Open Collections program, Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 is a vast digital collection of books, manuscripts, and photographs on the history of U.S. immigration. A wide range of topics are covered, including various immigrant diaspora, the lives of immigrants, and restrictions on immigration.
The official site for the National Archives and Records Administration indexes digital copies of U.S. historical documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and World War II photographs.
National Jukebox, part of the Library of Congress, is an online collection of historic sound recordings.
Salem Witch Trials: Documentary Archive and Transcription Project is a digital library of court records, letters, diaries, and maps pertaining to the Salem Witch trials. All of the site's materials are freely accessible to the public, courtesy of the University of Virginia Libraries.
The American Presidency Project is an online archive of presidential documents. It allows users to search by president, date, document category, and keyword.
The Avalon project is a digital collection of documents pertaining to government, law, and economics. Documents in the collection range from those dated around 4,000 B.C. to the present. The project is managed by the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University.
The David Rumsey Map Collection is an image database of more than 35,000 historical maps from around the world. Although the site indexes images of maps from every continent, special emphasis is placed on maps from North and South America created in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Valley of the Shadow is a digital library of letters, journals, government records, and newspapers documenting the Civil War in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania. This digital library is made available by the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.
The Western History Collections at the University of Oklahoma is a special collections library that focuses on the history of the American West, including Native American history. A portion of the Western History Collections materials are available online.
Part of Harvard University Library's Open Collections program, Women Working, 1800-1930 is a digital library of books, manuscripts, and photographs that focuses on the history of women and work in the United States. A wide range of topics are covered including working conditions for women, women and poverty, and the Great Depression.
From the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University. The Avalon Project's collections include digitized documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy, and Government. Covers Ancient history through the present day.
Primary historical documents from Western Europe. Organized by country and by time periods, this is an excellent site.
This site contains over 400 separate historical articles and approximately 4000 events that can be searched by region or theme. Useful for brief overviews.
Historical Maps - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - UT Library Online
Internet History Sourcebooks Project: Paul Halsall/Fordham University
Comprehensive list of sites for classical and Mediterranean studies. Primary and secondary sources, maps, and art catalogs.
Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World is an original electronic project aiming at collecting, recording, documenting, presenting and promoting the historical data that testify to the presence of Hellenic culture throughout time and space.
Texts and images of papyri from ancient Egypt as well as full-text articles.
A useful introduction to Greek and Roman mythology, Roman history and Roman culture. Latin Wordstock provides translations of Latin words into English and derivatives of English words from Latin roots.