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.
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...
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...
Lesson Plan
National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art: Little House in the Valley

For Teachers 7th - 8th
Students will explore nineteenth-century life in the White Mountains of New Hampshire through a tale of a family who lived there by analyzing a painting by Thomas Cole and reading a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Primary
National Humanities Center

National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Cult of Domesticity: Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

For Students 9th - 10th
Read this mid-nineteenth century short story that raises questions about the roles of women as wives and mothers. Discussion questions are included.
Graphic
National Gallery of Art

National Gallery of Art: "Watson and the Shark"

For Students 9th - 10th
This is a comprehensive site that tells the story behind one of John Singleton Copley's most famous paintings, "Watson and the Shark." The site discusses the artist's life and provides compositional information about the painting....
Handout
Black Past

Black Past: Grafton Tyler Brown (1841 1918)

For Students 9th - 10th
Learn about Grafton Tyler Brown, the most successful African American artist in the 19th Century west, who lived his adult life as a white man.
Website
Stanford University

Stanford University: Early American Newspapers

For Students 9th - 10th
This site from the Stanford University has an excellent listing of late 1700, early 1800 newspapers that were on the East Coast, and in the South.
Handout
Oklahoma Historical Society

Oklahoma State University: Library: Chief Kicking Bird

For Students 9th - 10th
This biography discusses the life of Chief Kicking Bird, a 19th century leader and peace chief of the Kiowa tribe of Oklahoma.
Website
Other

Kings Landing Historical Settlement

For Students 3rd - 8th
Kings Landing Historical Settlement reflects life in the 19th century. Learn about the Loyalists who escaped the American Revolution and the hardships they faced working to establish their homes in New Brunswick.
Website
Wisconsin Historical Society

Turning Points in Wisconsin History: Effigy Mounds Culture

For Students 9th - 10th
A good description of the life of the Woodland Moundbuilding culture in what is now Wisconsin. Learn about the effigy mounds built by these Native Americans, and access primary source manuscripts of writers trying to figure out these...
Website
Independence Hall Association

U.s. History: The Ways of the Cowboy

For Students 5th - 8th
The cowboys were the background of the cattle boom in the 19th century. Read about their life, and their demise.
Handout
Vroma Project

Cambridge History of Eng. And Am. Literature: Longfellow at Harvard

For Students 9th - 10th
Examines Longfellow's position at Harvard, his dissatisfaction with the academic life, and his second marriage. Includes a discussion of one of Longfellow's best-known poems, "A Psalm of Life."