US History: Spring Research Paper: Websites

FIND RELIABLE WEBSITES

• Britannica Academic On your article page, click on Related for links to recommended websites.

• SweetSearch History, A Search Engine for Students searches only credible websites approved by research experts. 

• Google Limit your search to reliable domains by including the phrase AND site:edu OR site:gov (edu for educational institutions in the U.S.; gov for U.S. government and U.S. state government entities.

  • Note that universities may allow their students to use the edu domain. If there is a tilde (~) in the URL, it may be a personal student page which is not monitored by the institution. In this case it may not be a reliable site.

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TRUSTWORTHY US HISTORY WEBSITES

• Library of Congress Digital Collections: American History Searchable primary source collections at the Library of Congress; browse by topic, media, place, or time period.
• Biography of America From Annenberg Learner educational resources.
• The Black Past: Remembered & Reclaimed The "Google" of African American history includes an online encyclopedia, primary sources, and much more.
• Digital History Comprehensive U.S. history website, including primary sources, from the Univ. of Houston's College of Education.
• Digital Public Library of America Discover more than 33 million images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States.
• Famous Trials The Web’s largest and most visited collection of original essays, trial transcripts and exhibits, maps, images, and other materials relating to the greatest trials in world history. Created and maintained by Douglas O. Linder, professor at law school of University of Missouri, Kansas City.
• Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is one of the great archives in American history. Drawing on the 70,000 documents... and an extensive network of eminent historians, the Institute provides teachers, students, and the general public with direct access to unique primary source materials. 
• History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web An annotated guide to the best web resources in American history, including primary sources and websites. Developed by American Social History Project/Center for Media & Learning, City University of New York, and the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University.
• History of U.S. Foreign Relations comes from the Office of the Historian, U.S. Dept of State, and includes documents.
• The Living New Deal serves as a clearinghouse for information on the New Deal; hosted by Dept. of Geography, Univ. of California, Berkeley.
• The Miller Center a nonpartisan affiliate of the University of Virginia that specializes in presidential scholarship, public policy, and political history.
• The Pop History Dig contains more than 250 stories, often looking at some mix of issues such as: politics and music, technology and business, Hollywood and politics, media and culture, and sports stars and advertising. The archive is browsable by decade back to 1900.
• Presidential Libraries provides exhibits on various materials on individual presidents, their presidencies, and their personal lives.
• Smithsonian History Explorer was developed by the National Museum of American History in partnership with the Verizon Foundation to offer hundreds of free, innovative online resources for teaching and learning American history.

For more information on finding reliable websites, see the guide Find and Evaluate Websites.