American Studies Web
http://lumen.georgetown.edu/projects/asw/
“The American Studies Web is the largest bibliography of web-based resources in the field of American Studies.”
The field of American Studies helps supplement the study of U.S. history with a host of other disciplines and methodologies to produce a broad-based perspective on our past. This portal site has a series of categories and subjects that help narrow search results and lead to the most useful links. There are 28 main subjects including Community Studies, Frontier and Borderlands Studies, History and Historical Culture Studies, Nationalism and Post-nationalism and Working Class and Labor Studies. The sites that are referenced represent a wide range of perspectives and are of excellent quality. This site’s primary value is that it adds numerous other methodologies and approaches that are sometimes not included in history websites.

Awesome Library
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/history.html
“Awesome Library organizes the Web with 26,000 carefully reviewed resources, including the top 5 percent in education”
This portal site offers links to hundreds of useful history websites and lesson plans. The links are divided thematically and cover an excellent range of American history. Within each category, the links are divided into Books, Discussions, Lesson Plans, Lists, Materials, Multimedia, Papers, Periodicals, Projects, Purchase Resources, Research, Web Library Sponsors, Sub-topics and Worksheets. Each thematic category offers a selection of these resources and most of them contain a short annotation of what the linked site is. Although it does require a bit of navigating, this portal site is an amazing resource. If the browser puts a little time into looking around, it will definitely pay off in finding lesson plan materials, information and ideas. (BR)

A Biography of America
http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica
"A Biography of America is a telecourse and video series that presents American history as a living narrative…”
Created as the companion website to the video series and telecourse of the same name, A Biography of America does an excellent job at bringing general United States history to the visitor. The information is divided into categories broken down into time periods such as The Coming of Independence, The Civil War, and Industrial Supremacy. Each time period offers key events in the form of a time-line, maps, and a webography (which provides links to sites with primary and secondary source materials related to the specific period). The site is very well organized which makes it very easy to locate information.

Douglass Archives of American Public Address
http://douglassarchives.org/
“Douglass is an electronic archive of American oratory and related documents. It is intended to serve general scholarship and courses in American rhetorical history at Northwestern University.”
The Douglass Archives of American Public Address hold a good selection of important speeches in U.S history from John Winthrop in 1625 to George W. Bush in 2003. These speeches can be searched by author, title, chronology or issue (topic). In addition to these speeches, the site provides an extensive list of links to off-site “speeches, documents and resources across the Web.” These links are divided and grouped chronologically and can be easily navigated. Under the U.S. History link this site also provides the text of An Outline of American History, one of the oldest continuing publications of the United States Information Agency (USIA). This survey of U.S. History serves as an excellent source for background information and for understanding broad historical trends. This site is a great source for historic speeches, information on U.S. history and links to other useful sites. (BR)

Education World
http://www.educationworld.com/a_sites/archives/history.shtml
Education World is a website that has located other good websites focusing on different areas of history such as the Civil War, Holocaust, American Revolution, United States presidents, and women in history. Other points of interest about this site are article archives where one can find teacher submitted lesson plans, and articles and tips on incorporating technology into the classroom. Also, there are subject resources like time-lines, worksheets, games, and activities for downloadable classroom use.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence
http://www.ed.gov/free
This website offers a very good way of locating quality websites in many different areas. Operating as the government's education website, one can easily locate sites by subject, but also many different topics within each different subject. Typing in a search query, a list of links quickly appears (many of which are links to other government history websites). As this website was, and continues to be geared towards helping educators across the nation, it would be worth accessing for information.

TheGateway.org
http://www.thegateway.org
“The Gateway to Educational MaterialsSM is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites.”
TheGateway.org is a portal website for teachers looking for on-line educational materials. Provided by the U.S. Department of Education, this site links teachers with other government, non-profit, commercial, and private websites for all disciplines at all levels. The websites vary from text-oriented to interactive. The organization of TheGateway.org provides a fast, efficient means of surfing the internet for valuable and helpful materials.

History Channel Network
http://network.historychannel.com/?AID=1035073&PID=303712
"Welcome to the HistoryChannel.com Network, a collection of the web's best history sites, indexed all in one place."
There are few history websites out there that can compare with the quality of historychannel.com, but those that are of good quality are identified here. On the History Channel Network the history channel has previewed and approved websites they feel are of good quality. With a lot of different categories to choose from, and even more websites listed in each category, this website offers everything from general to very specific history categories. This website in one worth looking in to, just keep in mind that it is a web portal and sites can change their content in a second, making the task of monitoring their quality very difficult (even with the approval of the history channel).

History Matters
http://historymatters.gmu.edu
"Designed for High School and college teachers of United States History courses. This site serves as a gateway to Web resources and offers useful materials for teaching United States history..."
History Matters, by George Mason University, presents the viewer with a tremendous amount of information on nearly any subject for American history. The amount of material though is not overwhelming at all. What makes this site so useful is that the search function for this site is one of the best around. Not only can you choose a general topic to look for, but you can also choose sub-areas from that general topic, thereby narrowing your search and making it all the more specific and helpful.

The Internet Public Library
http://www.ipl.org
The Internet Public Library basically provides visitors with an on-line library of electronic sources and links to various sites. For teachers and students, this site has much to offer. First, the IPL search engine quickly locates other websites that house primary and secondary sources. Second, students at all levels can use IPL to hone their writing, research, and study skills. There is an especially nice selection under the “TeenSpace” topic that helps high school students learn how to write a research paper or project, and how to overcome some of the dread that comes with large projects. Overall, this is a wonderful site.

Library and Archival Exhibitions on the Web
http://www.sil.si.edu/SILPublications/online-Exhibitions/
“This site features links to online exhibitions that have been created by libraries, archives, and historical societies, as well as to museum online exhibitions with a significant focus on library and archival materials.”
A project of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, this site links the browser to libraries across the country. These online exhibits include “printed books, book illustrations, manuscripts, photographs, printed ephemera, posters, archival audio and video recordings, artist's books, and the book arts (engraving, marbling, and bookbinding)” and more. They are searchable by subject and are also listed alphabetically. Through this portal site, you can visit libraries across the country and enjoy exhibits on a wide variety of topics. (BR)

The Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov
The Library of Congress online site can effectively be used as the main page for other sites like The Learning Page and the American Memory Collections. The search engine on this site is of great value as it searches government databases to find the most accurate and pertinent information. With links to places such as America’s Library, and Online Galleries and Exhibits, the visitor should be able to find the information sought.

The LOC.gov Wise Guide
http://www.loc.gov/wiseguide
The Library of Congress has partnered with the Ad Council to create the "Wise Guide," a monthly look at links to the best of the Library's online materials. Currently, the site has eight archived issues with one current edition. In these editions visitors can follow links to various materials from the vast resources collected by the government. As an example, in the current edition one can view information dealing with Father's Day, John Philip Sousa, and an amusing collection of dance instruction manuals from 1490 to 1920. This site would be helpful for anyone who would like to keep up to date on current online materials offered by our federal government’s sponsored websites.

Matrix
http://matrix.msu.edu
“Based at Michigan State University, MATRIX is devoted to the application of new technologies in humanities and social science teaching and research. The Center creates and maintains online resources, provides training in computing and new teaching technologies, and creates forums for the exchange of ideas and expertise in new teaching technologies.”
Michigan State University has accomplished much over the years in terms of their technological application of historical resources. Matrix is another step in this long process of merging history and technology. Although the browser will not find a massive database filled with images or primary documents at this site, they will find something arguably better—links to the other projects and databases sponsored or created by MSU. Among the many links, visitors will find the Studs Terkle project, Historica Voices.org, H-Quilts, Quilt index, The Internet and Women’s Democratic Organizing, and many others. Should internet search engines fail to produce the desired result, or if a browser simply wants to see what new creation MSU has produced, Matrix is a good place to start.

Social Studies
http://www.ed.gov/free/s-social.html
“More than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group in 1997 to make hundreds of Federally supported teaching and learning resources easier to find. The result of that work is the FREE web site…”
If an educator is looking for resources and lesson plans in the area of the social studies, this site would be a great place to visit. With new teaching and learning resources added monthly, this website is continuously expanding to better aid educators. This website offers Gateway to Educational Materials, “which offers a database of more than 17,000 education resources across more than 100 websites.” Some specific social studies areas include civics, history, state history, the U.S. Constitution, U.S. government, and U.S. history.

The Social Studies Help Center
http://www.socialstudieshelp.com/index.html
“Social Studies help for the 11th grade American History and 12th grade Economics and AP Government. There are class notes, numerous Supreme Court case summaries and information on how to write a research paper inside.”
David K. Miller, a teacher of 12 years and recently promoted assistant principal, started this website six years ago to help his students with their social studies classes. Since its inception, it has grown to include information ranging from American History to AP American Government. History materials include narratives about the major issues, periods, and events, which are reinforced with a variety of primary documents. Also, students looking to supplement their class notes can find resources here, since portions of his material come in the form of outlines. Just as important, Mr. Miller offers his visitors information on writing a research paper and documenting sources. Teachers also stand to gain from this website. There is a section with sample rubrics for general assignments or thematic papers. Finally, Miller supplements his website by providing links to others.

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.

Subject Research Guides: American and British History
http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/history/history.shtml
This is one of the most impressive portal sites around! It is hosted as a research guide by Rutgers University Libraries. Besides the enormous content of the site, it is wonderfully organized. The categories are Reference Resources, Archival and MSS. Guides, General History Portals, Sites Organized by Subject, Sites Organized by Period, Full-text Documents by Period and History Associations & History Listservs. Obviously, there are a wide variety of research approaches offered. Within each category, there are hundreds of links that include explanatory annotations. Although much of the content deals with British history as indicated in the sites title there is an equal amount of American history resources. The resources on American history merit the time requisite to sorting through any unrelated British links. (BR)

Teaching American History
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/
This website, hosted by the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs at Ashland University, offers some very useful resources. Foremost is the digital library. It offers an extensive selection of documents on American political thought from the revolution through the 20th century. The documents are organized chronologically in the Founding, Expansion, Civil War, Progressive and Post World War II Eras. Within each Era, the documents are listed by author and topic as well as in a category entitled “General Readings.” This additional category offers a host of other significant documents related to the time period. One feature that sets this digital library apart from others of similar content is its internal search engine that makes browsing and researching much easier. This collection is an indispensable collection of the most important primary documents in American History and should be used often in lesson planning and presentation. Also available on this website are audio recordings of lectures and seminar presentation on various topics. Another feature is a link to all Teaching American History Grant websites. (BR)

University of Virginia Electronic Text Center
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/subjects/
“The Etext Center at the University of Virginia Library has pursued twin missions with equal seriousness of purpose since its inception in 1992: To build and maintain an internet-accessible collection of SGML and XML-encoded texts and images…To build and maintain user communities adept at the creation and use of these materials.”
The most useful collection in this online library is The Modern English Collection (AD 1500-present). Within this collection there are primary documents from African American and Native American sources, the American Civil War, the Colonial era, Women Writers and many others. These documents range from runaway slave advertisements to works of early American fiction. This collection has many of the common documents that are easily found elsewhere, but also contains thousands of unique resources. The selection offers the opportunity to go beyond well-known sources and to utilize new and fresh documents. This collection is an excellent place to find primary documents for classroom use. Though not directly applicable to U.S. History there are also interesting sources for European and world history. (BR)

Voice of the Shuttle
http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2713
A professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara together with a team of graduate students maintains this portal site. They must have been keeping themselves busy because their sites content is enormous! Although including many subjects, the most extensive is the list of History websites. On the right hand side of the page is a list of topics including U.S. and Native American history. Clicking on these links will direct you to lists of websites. The links are all organized into subcategories such as “US-Indian Treaties and Related Documents,” “Revolutionary America (to 1791)” and “U.S. Civil War.” There are 38 such subcategories. Each link has a brief annotation or explanation of the site. Furthermore, the resources on the page all seem to be updated and without bad links. This is a well-organized portal site with a wide range of subjects to choose from. It well deserves the awards and distinctions it has received.