America on the Move
http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/
“America on the Move explores the role of transportation in American history. Visit communities wrestling with the changes that new transportation networks brought. See cities change, suburbs expand, and farms and factories become part of regional, national, and international economies. Meet people as they travel for work and pleasure, and as they move to new homes.”
For those desiring to learn more about transportation and its revolutionary effects on American society, America on the Move is the place to start. Based on an exhibition at the National Museum of American History, this website traces the evolution of transportation from the Early Republic to Modern American History. Images and historical narratives show how transportation methods influenced the size and composition of cities, businesses and commerce throughout the nation, even the types of food that Americans eat. Finally, interactive games make this website enjoyable for younger browsers, while lesson plans proffered on the site can help teachers with in class activities.

American Studies
http://xroads.virginia.edu
American Studies, from the University of Virginia, offers the visitor many great features. Among the many categories are Hypertexts (W.E.B. Dubois, R.W. Emerson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe), Cultural Maps (including Territorial Expansion, Revolutionary America, and Union Expansion), Museum Exhibits (The 1939-40 New York World’s Fair, The World’s Columbian Exposition, etc.), and The 1930s. Another great aspect to this site is that it offers an extensive section pertaining to the history of the United States Capitol building as well as a virtual tour.

America’s Story from America’s Library
http://www.americasstory.com
"America's Story from America's Library" wants you to have fun with history while learning at the same time. We want to put the story back in history and show you some things that you've never heard or seen before.”
Presented by the Library of Congress, this site offers information, games, quizzes, and audio/visual material. The America at Play section talks about American leisure and pastimes and has lots of fun activities. The Meet Amazing Americans section deals with a variety of individuals from Buffalo Bill Cody to Duke Ellington and from King Kamehameha I to W.E.B. Du Bois. Throughout the site there are links to audio and video clips that are both informative and very entertaining. The site also helps contextualize the myriad of topics by placing everything on a timeline. If not anything else, this site could provide some fun supplemental material for lessons on almost any topic. (BR)

Digital History
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
“This Web site was designed and developed to support the teaching of American History in K-12 schools and colleges and is supported by the Department of History and the College of Education at the University of Houston.”
A combined project of the University of Houston, Chicago Historical Society, Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, National Park Service, Department of the Interior, and Project for the Active Teaching of American History (PATH), this information source is extensive. Digital History provides its readers with a massive list of materials including, but not limited to, a digital textbook and encyclopedia; images, pictures, interactive games and activities, and political cartoons (good for research or sheer enjoyment); lesson plans; primary documents; and a guide on writing and researching history. The latter item on this list captures the interest of those acquainted with typical on-line resources. A website offering capable suggestions and guidelines on researching and writing history is a rarity. The lessons teach students and novices valuable tools such as choosing a topic, finding primary sources, locating information in journals, and utilizing archives and local institutions. Finally, Digital History contains links to other websites and organizations. Overall, this site is a useful and easily accessible source of information.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
http://www.gliah.uh.edu
"Dedicated to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and promoting interest in the history of the United States…”
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History offers the visitor many interesting features to utilize in the classroom. Not just limited by periods such as The Gilded Age and World War II, this site also offers Exhibitions and Interactive Exercises for Students. Located in the Interactive Exercises section one can find quizzes on many topics (slavery, the United States Constitution, etc.), computer games pertaining to history, and an area that allows people to ask professional historians questions. This site is a good resource for internet-based activities.

Immigration: The Changing Face of America
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/immigration_set1.html
“This feature presentation links educators to primary sources from the Library of Congress' online collections. These Web resources can make history come alive for students! The feature provides an introduction to the study of immigration to the United States. It is far from the complete story, and focuses only on the immigrant groups that arrived in greatest numbers during the 19th and early 20th centuries.”
As conceded by this website’s overview, it is only an introduction to U.S. immigration. Nevertheless, it is definitely worth looking at as it goes far beyond an average cursory introduction. Along the left hand side of the main page there are small images that link to different nationalities of immigrants. Within each section, the story of that group’s immigration to the United States is summarized. These presentations are enhanced by the inclusion of primary source materials from the Library of Congress (mainly images). Other Library of Congress websites with relevant information are also linked within these summaries. The historical information and explanations give an excellent picture of the reasons for, modes of and diverse groups that participated in U.S. immigration. Other features include several interactive games provided for students about the “Irish” language and Native American place names, interviews with recent U.S. immigrants, an international cookbook and a few excellent teacher lesson plans. This website is indeed an excellent introduction to U.S. immigration and offers many avenues for more in-depth investigation and interest. (BR)

National Park Service Data Information
http://www.nps.gov/gis/data_info/clearinghouse.html
“The National Park Service Data and Information Web site contains several helpful links for data related to the Parks.”
The National Park Service Data Information Web site offers the visitor national and regional data sets in such areas as civil war and land status, local/regional historic and scenic trails, and information on the Virgin Islands. All of the information is in a well-designed and easily “browseable” format that utilizes an interactive map, making information retrieval very quick whether you are looking for general or specific state information. Some of the more interesting information can be found in the Civil War section that contains information on battery positions, burials, forts, guns, historical campsites, and the railroad.

The New Americans
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/newamericans/
“Follow a diverse group of immigrants and refugees as they leave their home and families behind and learn what it means to be new Americans in the 21st century.”
Based on a PBS series, this website gives a rich and fascinating glimpse into the current events of a historic and integral part of U.S. History – immigration. One of the best ways to understand historical phenomena is to investigate their current counterparts, and immigration is a subject in which this technique works especially well. The issues, trials and problems faced by U.S. immigrants in centuries past are still faced today by the immigrants entering our country. On this website there are interactive activities, audio and video clips from the series, immigrant stories and an excellent section on immigrant culture. Most useful are the set of lesson plans found under the “For Teachers” section. The questions asked of students in these lesson plans do an excellent job of helping them relate and connect with peoples they are separated from by culture, experiences and time. Nearly all of the United States has a recent immigrant past, and these lesson plans, TV series and website can help us better understand that past.

PBS – American Experience
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/index.html
“As television's longest-running, most-watched history series, American Experience brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that helped form this nation. American Experience Online premiered in November of 1995 and has since won accolades from viewers and critics alike. To date, American Experience Online has produced over 85 feature sites.”
This resource is valuable as a companion to the PBS American Experience programs or simply as a resource website. Be sure to check first with the season schedule to see what programs are going to be run soon on your local PBS station. The program sites are listed thematically, alphabetically, and chronologically. They can also be searched by keyword. Within each site there are primary documents, biographies and often games, video clips and other multimedia resources. There is a good selection of topics so it should be easy to find something of interest. This site would be great for students to learn about new topics and find out what events in history interest them the most. If coupled with a viewing of one of the programs, the teacher resources would prove very helpful to facilitate good classroom activities. BR

Social Studies Sources
http://education.indiana.edu/%7Esocialst/
“This page is designed for K-12 social studies teachers and students. It also has information and topics that are useful to pre-service social studies instructors and students.”
With content areas of General History, Government/Politics, Geography/Culture, News Sources, Cultural Diversity, and U.S. History, the Social Studies Sources website offers teachers excellent lesson plans in all of the categories, but of particular interest are the lesson plans in the U.S. History section. Along with the lesson plans, this site offers links to other credible websites (like American Memory from the Library of Congress), that serve to bring primary documents into the classroom. Some of the more interesting primary document-based websites that Social Studies Sources lists on its site are the Civil War Photographs Home Page (from the American Memory collection), the History of the United States (from Mississippi State University), and Abraham Lincoln Online.

Within These Walls
http://americanhistory.si.edu/house/home.asp
Within These Walls, from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, brings an interesting look at our nation’s history through the history of one house. This site tells the story of five families who lived in this house over a 200 year period, focusing on the impact that the families had on the political environment around them. Through stories of meetings with important historical figures in their kitchens and parlors, and everyday choices and personal acts of courage and sacrifice, this site is able to bring social and political history to the visitor in an interesting format. The one drawback to this site is that it takes a while to load because it utilizes Flash technology. Even the non-Flash version seems to take some time. However, having said all that, this site does present the visitor with some very good resources and pictures from the historical time period in question.