+
Website
Other

19th Century Merchant Marine Digital Library

For Students 9th - 10th
This resource is a gateway to digital collections dealing with merchant marines and shipping during the 19th century.
+
Website
Smithsonian Institution

National Museum of American History: America on Stone

For Students 9th - 10th
Features an extensive collection of lithographs that portrays everyday life in the 19th century and attitudes about race and ethnicity. These prints play a major role in helping us understand America's past. Subjects covered include...
+
Primary
Harp Week

Harp Week: 19th Century Advertising

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of the advertisements that were published in Harper's Weekly between 1857 and 1872.
+
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Gothic Undercurrents: Nathaniel Hawthorne

For Students 9th - 10th
Nathaniel Hawthorne is featured in this brief biography highlighting his Puritan family background which inspired his thought provoking writings of the nineteenth century. Click on "Nathaniel Hawthorne Activities" for related resources.
+
Website
Library of Congress

Loc: Home Sweet Home Life in 19th Century Ohio

For Students 9th - 10th
This site uses historically significant documents to paint a picture of family life in 19th century Ohio. Music plays a large role in this picture.
+
Handout
Other

19th Century Forts: Texas Frontier Clash of Cultures

For Students 9th - 10th
Scattered across Texas are the remnants of a fierce defense system - forts. This site talks about the fort system as a whole. There are detailed links to information about specific forts in the state. An interactive student activity...
+
Unit Plan
Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Learner: American Passages: Regional Realism: Mark Twain

For Students 9th - 10th
This biography features Mark Twain as a regional realist author, world renown for his ability to portray real Americans in the late nineteenth century. Click "Mark Twain Activities" for artifacts and activities.
+
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: Cotton and African American Life

For Students 6th - 8th
But for the invention of the cotton gin, slavery perhaps would have died out in the United States in the early 19th century. Read about why technological advances caused the spread of slavery in the South and read about how slaves clung...
+
Primary
Calisphere: University of California Libraries

University of California: Calisphere: Gold Rush Era: Everyday Life and People

For Students 9th - 10th
A collection of primary source photos from 19th-century California which portray what everyday life was like during the California Gold Rush.
+
Website
Other

American Centuries, View From New England

For Students 9th - 10th
A multi-purpose site that provides information on history and historic artifacts from New England. There are also some interesting games that serve to enhance learning about New England. Be sure to watch video demonstrations of Early...
+
Website
PBS

Pbs: American Experience: George Eastman: The Wizard of Photography

For Students 9th - 10th
American Experience offers a comprehensive look at George Eastman and his development of photography. Included are a timeline, biographies of important people in Eastman's personal and professional life, discussions in the history of...
+
Primary
University of North Carolina

"Life and Times of Frederick Douglass": Text

For Students 9th - 10th
HTML full text of the "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass," the autobiography of the 19th century African American abolitionist (1818-1895).
+
Website
Other

Western History Genealogy: Digital Images: Native American Women

For Students 9th - 10th
A picture gallery with information about the roles that Native American women played in everyday life in the late 19th century in the West.
+
Handout
PBS

Pbs: American Experience: Stephen Foster

For Students 9th - 10th
A website that accompanies a film on Stephen Foster. Students can listen to the famous songs, view a timeline of his life, and find information about Foster's contemporaries.
+
Primary
Library of Congress

Loc: American Memory: Touring Turn of the Century America

For Students 9th - 10th
This collection contains thousands of photographs from the Detroit Publishing Company and gives viewers the opportunity to explore America from the period of 1880 to 1920. Images include rural America, city life, men and women at work,...
+
Website
PBS

Pbs: School: The Story of American Public Education: Evolving Classroom

For Students 3rd - 5th
A detailed comparison of the classroom in a nineteenth century schoolhouse to that in a twenty-first century school. Looks at many features of school life, e.g., discipline, technology, homework, testing, etc. Supported with many images...
+
Handout
Other

Denver Public Library: History of the American West

For Students 9th - 10th
This massive archive holds more than 30,000 photographs detailing life in the American West from 1860 to 1940. Easy to use it can be searched by key word, topic,or a name index.
+
Handout
Bibliomania

Bibliomania: Biography of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

For Students 9th - 10th
This Bibliomania.com site a biography of the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882). Discusses his parents, early youth, education, literary ambitions, years of travel and study, Harvard tenure, love for...
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Fanny Fern: Fern Leaves From Fanny's Portfolio

For Students 9th - 10th
Short periodical pieces that examine the complex and challenging roles that women found thrust upon them in mid-nineteenth century American culture. Discussion questions are provided.
+
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Theodore Parker: Of the Function of Woman

For Students 9th - 10th
A sermon by a Unitarian minister who argues that women have a positive role to play in American life and that isolating them within a domestic sphere loses the power of what they can contribute. Discussion questions are provided.
+
Activity
Washington State University

Washington State University: Frederick Douglass: Life & Works

For Students 9th - 10th
A clickable list of student resources for researching the life and work of this 19th century African American civil rights leader and abolitionist.
+
Graphic
Boston College

Becker Collections: Drawings of the American Civil War

For Students 9th - 10th
The Becker Collection showcases the drawings and observations of artist-reporters who worked for "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly Newspaper," a newspaper of the time. Find a visual record of the war along with other drawings that...
+
Unit Plan
C-SPAN

American Writers: Harriet Beecher Stowe

For Students 9th - 10th
An informational site on Harriet Beecher Stowe. Includes general information about her life, works, and writings, including Uncle Tom's Cabin. Also includes links to other sites.
+
Website
Virginia Commonwealth University

Vcu Digital Libraries Collections: Through the Lens of Time

For Students 9th - 10th
An impressive collection of photographs of African American life in Virginia, spanning the last half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. Included are photographs of various types of work, individuals, school groups, and...