Primary Resources and Real-World Data

Where can I find historical speeches, posters, and maps?

My students like real-world data and statistics for math problems, where can I find this type of information?

What are the best sources of historical documents, oral histories, and other authentic resources?

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The Internet provides access to a wide range of primary resources such as letters, diaries, journals, logs, data, documents, speeches, and videos. Students can also create authentic information through collecting oral histories, conducting polls and surveys, and keeping journals.

Use the following links on this page for resources:

Primary Sources
Real-World Data Sources
Links to Resources
Teaching with Primary Sources and Data

Go to escrapbooking.com. Explore the many electronic primary sources.
Read Primary Sources at escrapbooking.com.

Remember, you can always find good resources in the news at CNN, USA Today, or other resources at Teacher Tap: News Resources. Explore authentic information resources on the Internet. Create a simple activity that would incorporate one resource into a classroom activity.

Skim articles related to primary resources:
Primary Sources: In Their Own Words (March 07, 2003) by Andrea Lipinski.
Why Study History Through Primary Sources adapted from James Harvey Robinson.
Rewarding Students' Skepticism: Promoting Information Literacy in the Classroom by Lynn Jones and Rosemarie Falanga.
Skim the Guide to Using Primary Resources to learn more about integrating authentic resources into your curriculum.

Primary Sources

100 Milestone Document
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/content.php?flash=true&page=milestone
Links to documents from the National Archives with teacher section.

Ad*Access
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/browse.html
Ads from the early 1900s by categories such as beauty, television, transportation, and WWII

African American Women at Duke University
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/african-american-women.html
Historical documents including slave letters.

American Memories from the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
Links to dozens of digital collections including documents, texts, photos, maps, audio, and video.

Edison Motion Pictures

American President
http://www.americanpresident.org/historical_documents.htm
Historical documents about the presidency.

American Treasurers of the Library of Congress
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/
Some of the most important materials from Library of Congress.

AskAsia: A K12 resources of the Asia Society
http://www.askasia.org/
Links to primary sources, maps, statistics, art, and cultural information on Asia.

Booknotes
http://www.booknotes.org/archives/
Archives of Booknotes interviews.

California Heritage Collection
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/
More than 30,000 images from California history.

Camp Harmony Exhibit from University of Washington Libraries
http://www.lib.washington.edu/exhibits/harmony/exhibit/index.html
Resources on Japanese Internment camps during WW2.

Canada's Digital Collection
http://collections.ic.gc.ca/E/index.php
Lots of collections.

Congress Link
http://www.congresslink.org/informationcenter.html
Information and documents.

Cybrary of the Holocaust
http://www.remember.org/
Explore resources on the Holocaust.

Defining Documents
http://classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/
Documents and articles about document written for kids.

Digital Classroom from NARA
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/index.html
Lots of resources and activities.

Digital History
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
Links to primary sources, multimedia, and virtual exhibits.

Digital Library from the New York Public Library
http://digital.nypl.org/
Includes documents, photos, and other materials.

Documenting the American South
http://docsouth.unc.edu/
First-person narratives, literature, letters, and documents.

Documents in the News from University of Michigan
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/docnews.html
Primary source documents related to current events.

Eugenics Archives
http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/
Over 2200 resources on the eugenics movement of the early 20th century.

Franklin D. Roosevelt President Library
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/online14.html
Online documents including sounds and video.

First Call: American Posters of World War One
http://www.library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/amposter.htm
Thirty great posters.

German Propanda Archive
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/index.htm
Explore Nazi and East German Propagand posters and other resources.

Government Printing Office
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html
Documents from all areas of the US government.

Great American Speeches
http://www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/index.html
80 years of political oratory.

Great Chicago Fire and The Web of Memory
http://www.chicagohistory.org/fire/intro/
Graphics, maps, and accounts of the fire.

Great Speeches from History Channel
http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/index.html
Famous speeches.

History and Politics Out Loud
http://www.hpol.org/
Searchable archive of politically significant audio.

History of the United Kingdom: Primary Documents
http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/uk.html
Primary documents from 1000 to present.

Images from the History of Medicine
http://wwwihm.nlm.nih.gov/
Nearly 60,000 photographs.

Images of American Political History
http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/_browse.htm
From 1750 to present.

Lost and Found Sound from National Public Radio
http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound/
Sounds from America

Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/research/lunar_orbiter/
Photographs of the moon.

Making of America
http://www.hti.umich.edu/m/moagrp/
Primary sources in American social history.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Projects
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/
Papers, documents, and sounds.

NASA Image eXchange
http://nix.nasa.gov/
Search for images.

Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project
http://thorpe.ou.edu/
Great collection of tribal documents including constitutions and codes.

Nazi and East German Propaganda Guide Page
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/
Documents, posters and other material.

New Deal Network
http://newdeal.feri.org/
Documents, speeches, and other resources.

Newseum
http://www.newseum.org/pulitzer/shock/shock.htm
Pulitzer Prize Photosgraphs.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html
Historical and current maps from around the world.

Primary Documents in American History from Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/PrimDocsHome.html
Includes documents from 1763-1815, 1815-1860, and 1860-1877.

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.net/index.shtml
Free electronic books including many historical texts.

Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library from Duke University
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/
Digital collections and links.

Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image
http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti/collections.cfm
Lots of text and image collections.

SunSITE Digital Collections
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Collections/
Links to digital collections at Berkeley.

THOMAS: Legislative Information on the Internet
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Primary sources documents on government.

Tinfoil
http://www.tinfoil.com/
Early recorded sounds.

University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection
http://content.lib.washington.edu/exhibits.html
Includes American Indians of the Pacific Northwest, Klondike Gold Rush, Great Seattle Fire, Salmon Collection. They also have collaborative projects on topics such as Washington Maps, King County, Port Townsend, and Seattle.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum Online Collection
http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/
Explore archives, art, artifcats, oral history, and photo collections.

Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
Explore primary documents including letters, diaries, newspapers, speeches, census, and chruch records from two communities during the Civil War.

Woman and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
http://womhist.binghamton.edu/
1440 primary documents and resources

Real-World Data Sources

42explore: Statistics and Probability
http://www.42explore.com/statistics.htm
Scroll down to the data section.

Fed Stats
http://www.fedstats.gov/
A gateway to statistics from 100 US Federal agencies

Geostat: Historical Census Browser
http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/
Census date from the 1800s and 1900s.

National Geophysical Data Center from NOAA
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdcinfo/onlineaccess.html
Data on a wide range of science topics.

Real-Time Data Sites from CIESE
http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/realtimedatasites.html
Links to data in many areas.

Surface Distance Between Two Points of Latitude and Longitude
http://www.wcrl.ars.usda.gov/cec/java/lat-long.htm
Enter two coordinates and receive the flight distance. Or find distance between 326 different cities worldwide.

Statistics Links

Statistics at the State and Local Levels
http://firstgov.gov/Government/State_Local/Statistics.shtml
Links to state and local statistics.

Statistics from Digital Librarian
http://www.digital-librarian.com/statistics.html
Lots of links to statistic information.

Science Resources

Earth and Moon Viewer
http://fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html
View the world in different ways.

Measure 4 Measure
http://www.wolinskyweb.net/measure.htm
Websites that estimate, caculate, evaluate, and translate.

Molecular Expressions
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/index.html
Photos and videos of the microscopic world such as amoeba.

Links to Resources

42explore: Historical Maps
http://www.42explore.com/historicalmaps.htm
Links to map websites and activities.
Related Websites:

Primary Source Digital Archives and Collections from Chico High School Library
http://dewey.chs.chico.k12.ca.us/primary.html
Links to documents, images, recordings, diaries, and letter links.

Primary Source Links from CIESE
http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/primary_sources.html
Links to primary sources.

Primary Sources from Springfield Township High School Virtual Library
http://mciunix.mciu.k12.pa.us/~spjvweb/primary.html
Activities for high school students with tons of links.

Repositories of Primary Sources
http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html
Links to over 5300 websites with manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar.

Real-Time Data Sites from CIESE
http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/realtimedatasites.html
Links to data in many areas.

Yahoo: Digital Libraries and Collections
http://dir.yahoo.com/Reference/Libraries/Digital_Libraries/Projects_and_Collections/
Links to digital libraries and collections.

Teaching with Primary Sources and Data

American Memories from Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/media.html
Lots of lessons and examples. Also, go to the main page.

Artifact and Analysis: A Teachers Guide to Interpreting Objects and Writing History
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/idealabs/ap/index.htm
Strategies for incorporating historical artifacts into the classroom.

Digital Archives and Collections
http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA/
Ideas for using primary resources.

Digital Librarian
http://www.digital-librarian.com/electronic.html
Electronic texts and primary sources.

Document Analysis Worksheets from National Archives
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/analysis_worksheets/worksheets.html
Great worksheets for different types of historical documents, audios, and videos.

Do History
http://www.dohistory.org/
Learn to piece together the past from fragments that have survived. Explore an example, then create your own.

Edsitement Lesson Plans
http://edsitement.neh.gov/tab_lesson.asp?subjectArea=3
Links to lots of lessons based on historical materials.

History Matters
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/
Lots of lesson and teaching ideas for working with primary resources. Explores students as historians.

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write a Letter (Grades 3-8)
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?ID=294
Lesson about historic letters.

Primary Sources Research Colloquium
http://www.library.yale.edu/ref/err/primsrcs.htm
Learn about primary sources research.

Projects Using Primary Sources & Archived Collections from CIESE
http://k12science.ati.stevens-tech.edu/primarysourceproj.html
Projects such as historical treasure chests, movie in the making, and population growth.

Strategies with Primary Sources
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/calheritage/k12project/strategies.html
A few great strategies.

Teaching with Documents from National Archives
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/teaching_with_documents.html
Lesson plans and resources.

Teaching with Documents
http://www.edteck.com/dbq/
Document-based Questions and ideas for teaching.

Incorporate Primary Resources

Brainstorm ways to collect information such as surveys, oral histories, and journal writing. Design an activity that would make use of local natural or historical resources.