Teaching American History
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Useful Websites
The following websites have been recommended and vetted by TAH Teacher-Historians

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  • American Revolution
  • Audiobooks/Podcasts
  • Black History
  • Civil War
  • Documents
  • Elections
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  • Holidays/Special Events
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    American Revolution
    American Revolution Clip Art - Collection of clip art images from a book from 1851
    Prison Ships - NY Times story about prison ships during the Revolution
    My Brother Sam is Dead Resource site for using the novel and a collection of maps and images of the Revolution
    Smithsonian - Myths of the American Revolution
    Mass. Historical Society - The Coming of the American Revolution
    Washingtons Crossing - website all about the historic Crossing of the Delaware
    Battle of Brooklyn - Interactive site about the largest battle of the American Revolution
    Documents
    Digital History Reader - U.S. and European History - Great collection of primary source documents.
    Library of Congress - American Memory - primary source documents.
    Our Documents - 100 milestone documents from the National Archives
    Teaching with Documents - lesson plans, exhibits, and more
    EdTeck - DBQs and CRQs
    Documents - Pre 1400's to 2001
    National Archives:Docs Teach -brings more than 3,000 primary sources together with seven online activities, each designed to reinforce specific classroom skills
    NYS Archives:Throughout The Ages - browse the US History section for chronological categories from Native Americans to the Cold War (over 500 photos). Also, some great old school pictures under Education.
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    Elections
    Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2004 - Campaign commercials from 1952 until 2004.
    American Rhetoric - 5000+ speeches
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    Audiobooks & Podcasts
    Free Audiobooks - many history related audiobooks.
    LearnOutLoud - free audiobooks and podcasts
    FreeAudio - a couple of history related audiobooks
    History and Politics Out Loud - searchable archive of politically significant audio materials
    Civil War
    History Place - Nice timeline with dates/photos
    New York Divided - New-York Historical Society's website about slavery & the Civil War in NY
    The Valley of the Shadow - Two communities (one North, one South) during the Civil War
    Liberator - Search through every issue of the Liberator, Boston-based abolitionist newspaper.
    Blog Divided - resources, lesson plans, topics for discussion
    Teach the Civil War - Teaching the Civil War with Technology; access to classroom videos
    Lincoln and New York- New York Historical Online exhibit and resouorces 
    PBS The Civil War: Homepage for the Landmark series, includes leson plans and video clips
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    Fun and Games
    TerraClues - Still in Beta so there may be a few kinks still left to iron out. Try it out. It has some great potential.
    The Mesoamerican Ballgame - explore the "first team sport in human history".
    Guess the Spot - how well do you know your landmarks?
    Make Your Own Comics - a cool site where you can easily create mini-cartoons.
    Presidential Trivia Game 
    Create puzzles of images - Upload images froom your computer to make puzzles for students
    Edit your photos quickly and easily online - Upload images from your computer to edit and create thought bubbles
    Salem Witch Trials Interactive - Will you confess?
    Infoplease - check out the news from the year you were born
    FreePoverty - practice geography skills and donate cups of water at the same time
    iCivics:The Democracy Lab - fun interactive games for students.

    History Channel - Place the state game. 
    Holidays/Special Events
    Constitution Day - September 17th
    Fourth of July History - lots of documents pertaining to the 4th of July
    Evacuation Day - November 25th
    Five Dutch Days NYC
    Snoods and Wattles - A Turkey's Story - Thanksgiving
    Teaching Thanksgiving - Jennifer Orr on Teaching Thanksgiving
    September 11th - Personal Stories of Transformation
    9/11 Memorial - Interactive Timeline
    Black History
    Black History Every Month - set up by David Bellel, a retired TAH Grant administrator and NYC SS teacher who specializes in putting together cool S.S. and technology applications. Check out the free images, Historic Harlem walking tour, and historic photos of Harlem for free download. "Worth exploring."
    Do's and Don'ts of Teaching Black History - What every teacher should know and do to ensure students get the most out of black history and Black History Month
    In Motion - The African-American migration experience
    Mapping the African American Past - Columbia University site - great resources
    The Bronx African-American History Project - Fordham University
    Eyes on the Prize - lessons, documents, and videos to supplement the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize"
    African-American History Month Resources - nice collection of websites
    The Teachers' Corner - useful sites and resources
    The Biography Channel - black history month resources
    Infoplease - black history resources
    History Channel - black history resources
    Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database - site from Emory University and NEH for research on the slave trade
    Library of Congress - African-American Perspectives
    Martin Luther King Jr - a collection of links/resources about MLK
    The Greensboro Four - PBS Video
    The Counter Revolution - Greensboro Four Op-Ed
    The Root - 50 years of Black History
    National Portrait Gallery Smithsonian Museum - African-American Portraits
    The Root - Black History Abroad
    Lesson Planet - The Harlem Renaissance Movement and its Music
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    Misc.
    ZipSkinny - enter your zip code to see interesting info from the US Census. Compare your zip with others.
    Awesome Stories - great SS stories - free for teachers.
    Understanding USA - great graphics, data, etc.
    US Census - United States Census Atlas
    Digital History - "using new technologies to enhance teaching and research"
    American Rhetoric - Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century
    R.F.K.  - 21 pages of lessons and background information
    Google Zeitgeist - interesting stats from Google
    News Feeds - news wires, newspapers, much more
    Lesson Resources
    Hippocampus - one-stop educational resources - documents, resources, multimedia.
    Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) - US History- nice resources for a ton of US History topics.
    Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) - ALL subjects
    Mr. Roughton's Classroom 2.0 - Mostly world history but the resources are easily adaptable to US history topics.
    DLESE - not strictly SS, but great connections for environment & geography
    TeachingHistory.org - Tons of great resources, lessons, etc.
    Eyes on the Prize - lessons, documents, and videos to supplement the PBS series "Eyes on the Prize"
    Gilder Lehrman History Now-  a quarterly journal from the GLI collection.  You can access all the past issues from this site. Click on the Teachers Desk for lessons and resources
    National Parks Service - Teaching with Historic Places
    Eyewitness to History - some great primary documents
    History Teacher.net -Award winning Social Studies site with tons of links resources and over 100 power points
    National Humanities Center - Toolbox Library-Using Primary Sources in U.S. History
    Lewis and Clark Lesson Materials - Elementary through College
    EDSITEMENT:National Endowment for the Humanities resource of lesson plans and units for US History and World History with strong connections to Art and Literature. Click on "All Lesson Plans" or "Social Studies and History" to be able to search through entire collection. 
    San Antonio School District - Collection of worksheets, templates, graphic organizers, and more. 
    History Animated - Animated military history
    Pete's Powerpoint Station:  Huge collection of slide shows and interactive resources for all subjects
    Strategies to teach Social Studies - a nice collection of strategies to teach social studies
    Stanford History Education Group  - Reading Like a Historian
    100+ Graphic Organizers - A huge collection of graphic organizers for use in your classroom.
    Teachers and History - a large collection of tools and resources for Middle School S.S. teachers
    Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies- 
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    For Kids
    History for Kids - Colonial Williamsburg - great games and activites for kids.
    Colonial Kids - activites and resources for children.
    Social Studies for Kids - this link takes you to the US History section.
    History Animated - Revolutionary War, Civil War battles - animated. 
    Music
    Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - teaching history with music - over 50 lesson plans
    Civil War Poetry - Poetry and music from the Civil War
    Civil War Songs- This page has some great information on music from the Civil War

    Great Depression/1930s - Manufacturing Memory: American Popular Music in the 1930s
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    Presidents
    Presidents- information on each American president on the White House website
    Governing Dynamo - transcripts of the inauguration speech of every president
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    Political Cartoons
    Harper's Weekly - political cartoon resources
    FDR Cartoons - a collection of political cartoons about FDR
    Triangle Factory Fire - images, cartoons, etc.
    Causes of the American Revolution - cartoons, DBQs
    Cartoons for the Classroom - great collection of political cartoons for MS/HS students
    Abraham Lincoln Cartoons - a sie dedicated to cartoons about Lincoln
    Political Cartoons - lots of cartoons with lesson plans.
    Library of Congress - political cartoons
    The Opper Project - political cartoons
    US Government
    Ben's Guide - US Government for Kids
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    Labor
    Labor Arts - virtual museum
    Labor History - New York Labor History
    Lowell Mills - Lowell National Park
    Women's History 
    Women Working - 1870-1930, a free digital archive of primary source materials for teaching, learning, and research
    Slavery
    Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade - online database with info on over 35,000 slaving voyages.
    A Visual Record of the Atlantic Slave Trade - over 1235 images
    ****Exhibit: New York Divided - Two N-Y Historical Exhibits full of resources 
    Lincoln - A Letter to Abraham Lincoln - Activities
    On the Water - narratives of slaves and slavers
    Melrose Interactive Slavery Environment
    NY and Slavery Curriculum: -Professor Alan Singer's NY and Slavery Curriculum 
    Rubrics
    Teachnology - a great collections of rubrics for social studies teachers
    Museums 
    Bronx County Historical Society - Bronx County Archives, Research Library, Poe Cottage, 
    Bartow-Pell Mansion
    Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Museum of the City of New York
    New-York Historical Society

    ****Exhibit: New York Divided
    ****Exhibit: Alexander Hamilton
    New York Public Library - digital resources, search & save your own collection.
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Online exhibits and galleries.
    Philipsburg Manor
    Colonial Williamsburg
    Hall of Fame for Great Americans
    Museum Box - create your own museum box and fill it with virtual artifacts
    Local History
    Bronx County Historical Society - Bronx County Archives, Research Library, Poe Cottage, 
    Forgotten NY - "A treasure trove" of NY history.
    The Five Points Site - "Archaeologists and historians rediscover a famous 19th century New York neighborhood"
    Songlines - Virtual walking ours of Manhattan streets - highly recommended!
    Bridge and Tunnel Club - nice photos and maps of NYC neighborhoods
    Battle for New York - walking tour
    Devil's Own Work - Civil War in NY walking tour
    The Mannhatta Project - reconstructing NY before Europeans
    National Park Service - Places where women made history
    Brooklyn Bridge Slideshow - Multimedia slideshow from the NY Daily News
    Whitman's Brooklyn - Brooklyn circa 1850
    Champlain, Hudson, Fulton - from the New York State Education Department
    History of NY  - a blog with some great links to NYC pages. Check out "Keys to the City"
    Bronx Board - a website for "ex-Bronxites"
    Borough Edges - photographic images of each borough
    East Bronx History - Huntington Free Library & Reading Room
    New Netherland - PowerPoint presentation & lesson created by TAH Teacher-Historian Luciano D'Orazio
    PlaceMatters - 700 places within the 5 boroughs that have a history connection
    WebQuests
    WebQuests -  Zunal WebQuest Maker is a web-based software for creating WebQuests in a short time without writing any HTML codes. It's free and you can easily create your own WebQuests to use with your classes. The also have a lot of WebQuests created by other teachers. Some of these WebQuests are good, some are not so good. Use your judgment.
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    Timelines 
    XTimelines - Online timelines created by the website members. Timelines are divided into categories and one is history. Timelines are searchable within the categories by A-Z or most popular.
    Hyperhistory - great timelines
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    Maps
    World Atlas - "lots of good stuff" - outline maps, geographic info, oceanic info, etc.
    National Geographic - Maps & Photos
    National Atlas- Easy to use;Maps to print, US and state maps, blank or labeled
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    Social History
    American Social History Project - many "Teaching Activities". Browse by collections, keywords, or historical eras
    Photos and Art
    History Place - nice collections of photos on a variety of topics
    Bronx Photos - a nice collection of Bronx pictures
    Picturing America - explore American history through works of art.
    Old Photos - tons of historical photos, over 2,500 on the Civil War alone. 
    Library of Congress - flickr collection of photos
    Digital Vault - great new website by the Library of Congress
    Life Magazine - Life photo archive hosted by Google
    Erie Canal - Narrated photo tour of the Erie Canal
    Gigapan - megapixel photo of 2009 Inauguration 
    Picturing The 1930's - Artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum collection are supplemented with primary sources
    Paintings of early New York and The Hudson River - Len Tantillo artwork online great for classroom use
    World War Two - A collection of some great photos from WW2 in the Pacific
    Civil War - tons of original Civil War photographs
    November 2010 EDSITEMENT Newsletter
    Life Magazine - never before seen photos of the Korean War
    Manzanar - Japanese Internment Photos from the Denver Post
    teachinghistory.org - how to use the NYPL Digital gallery
    New York Public Library - Digital Vault
    CUNY - Digital Metro New York
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    Test Prep 
    TAH Grade 5 - Test Prep Resources
    TAH Grade 8 - Test Prep Resources
    TAH H.S. - US History & Global Regents Test Prep Resources
    Study Zone - Oswego City School District
    New York State testing resources by grade, subject and topic - resources from Greece Central School District
    Social Studies Skills Tutor - Online practice of essential social studies skills.
    Videos
    ICUE-  Link to the US History page that is part of a collection of resources from NBC news archives in partnership with the University of Phoenix
    YouTube has some great educational videos. Use one of the next 6 links below to download the videos and save to a potable drive for use in school...
    1.   Youtube Snips - downloads Youtube videos in HD and regular mods
    2.   KickYoutube  lets you download Youtube videos  
    3.   SafeShare removes distracting and offensive elements around Youtube videos and allows you to crop videos before you share them   
    4.   TubeChop - lets you edit Youtube videos   
    5.   MakeUseOf offers 10 Youtube video tricks
    6.   Zamzar - download and covert and file. Very useful for downloading YouTube videos
    TeacherTube - Think, YouTube for Teachers. All educational videos, not blocked by filter. 
    7. Keepvid -download and convert your youtube videos 
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    TAH Teacher-Created Materials 
    TAH Resource WIki Resources and teacher created materials from TAH Instititutes
    Teacher-Historian Created PowerPoint Presentations/Lessons
    Teacher-Historian Created Lessons - Maritcha
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    Teaching American History