Library of Congress
Loc: Global Gateway: Meeting of Frontiers
From cossacks to cowboys, this Library of Congress special online collection looks at American westward exploration and expansion, and Russia's eastward reach into and conquest of Siberia. Includes historical information and timelines,...
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: The Homestead Acts
This collection uses primary sources to explore the Homestead Acts.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: Primary Source Set: Manifest Destiny
This collection uses primary sources to explore the idea of Manifest Destiny and its influence.
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian: National Museum of the American Indian: Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of Little Bighorn made an immense impression on American society and culture. Americans became obsessed with this battle and created artworks, shows, postcards, and dime novels. View primary sources from this era to understand...
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Staking Claims: The Gold Rush in Nineteenth Century America
This exhibition explores the Gold Rush, a group of related gold rushes to Western territories in the second half of the nineteenth century, and its impact on American history and culture.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: The Triumph of Nationalism: House Dividing: America, 1815 1850
A collection of forty-four primary resources including historical documents, literary texts, visual images, and maps, illuminated and contextualized by notes, thematic questions, and text-specific discussion questions for classroom...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Lewis Cass: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
An argument by the Michigan Territorial governor, Lewis Cass, that claimed state laws superseded the rights claimed by Native American tribes like the Cherokee.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: James G. Baldwin: Triumph of Nationalism: America, 1815 1850
An essay that describes the exuberant life of a frontier society with all its corruption, violence, vitality, and opportunity.
Library of Congress
Loc: Nation Expansion and Reform: Traveling on the Overland Trails, 1843 1860
Primary source information about traveling the Overland Trails, both to Oregon Country and California.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Harcourt: Biographies: Meriwether Lewis 1774 1809
A biography of Meriwether Lewis and information about his exploration of the Louisiana Territory that led to the development of the American West. Includes several maps.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Harcourt: Biographies: Meriwether Lewis
A biography of Meriwether Lewis, the man in charge of one of the great expeditions of the United States. (In Spanish)
Harry S. Truman Library and Museum
The Trumpet Club: The Birchbark House
Come and check out this informative site featuring the book "Birchbark House," by Louise Erdrich. This site provides a plot summary, discussion of settings and characterizations, and a class project idea.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Neh: Edsit Ement: If You Were a Pioneer on the Oregon Trail
Lesson plans that introduce the Oregon Trail to students and guide them into an activity where they create a personal narrative describing their journey out west. Provides a link to an excellent site that details many aspects of the...
University of Groningen
American History: Essays: The Seeds of Empirebuilding
Essay on European-American westward expansion and the conflict new settlement created with Native Americans. Author describes the development of a hierarchical structure in which indigenous peoples were exploited and unprotected.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: The Last Frontier
Describes the various forces and events that shaped the expansion of the western frontier in the mid- to late 1800s.
Internet History Sourcebooks Project
Fordham University: Modern History Sourcebook: Frederick Jackson Turner
This site from the Fordham University contains the introductory text of "The Significance of the Frontier in American History, 1893" by Frederick Jackson Turner.
University of Groningen
American History: Outlines: Building Unity
Outline of the U.S. and the quest for unity in the early 1800s. Article briefly chronicles events such as the War of 1812 as well as political and economic decisions that created a united America separate from Britain.
Digital History
Digital History: Conquering Space
A good review of how the rise of nationalism led to western expansion, support for federal funds to build infrastructure, and the protection of new American industry.
Scholastic
Scholastic History Mystery: Westward Migration: The Santa Fe Trail
Students try to guess the mystery subject Carlotta Facts, the History Mystery Museum's professor, is studying. They read the clues, do some online and offline research, and then attempt to identify the game's mystery place, The Santa Fe...
University of Colorado
University of Colorado: Academic Integrity Seminar: Frontier and American Character
This website is the reproduction of Ray Allen Billington's essay, "How the Frontier Shaped the American Character," (published in "American Heritage, The Magazine of History" in 1958). Billington analyzes the Turner frontier thesis in...
PBS
Wgbh/pbs: Westward Expansion 1860 1890
Many changes across the country during the westward expansion were features that could be captured on a map. Review this map and select characteristics to be illustrated. Characteristics such as population, major cities, railroads, and...
Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Education: Art to Zoo What Can You Do With a Portrait?
This is the very first published issue of Art to Zoo. Unlike later issues, it features three separate topics instead of one larger theme. In this issue you can find information and resources for teaching westward expansion and its impact...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Letter to Grandmother [Pdf]
"Letter to Grandmother" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a family of early settlers who moved west. A girl writes a letter to her grandmother telling her about their new life on the plains. It is followed by...
Polk Brothers Foundation Center for Urban Education at DePaul University
De Paul University: Center for Urban Education: Letter to Grandmother [Pdf]
"Letter to Grandmother" is a one page, fictional, reading passage about a family of early settlers who moved west. A boy writes a letter to his grandmother telling her about their new life on the plains. It is followed by...