Eras

General

Smithsonian Institution (For Researchers)

"The Smithsonian has wealth of information to support researchers and learners of all types. Whatever the discipline may be, we have online resources and experts who are eager to share knowledge and collaborate. Our investigations unfold at research centers, field sites, and museums in the United States and around the globe."

History by Era - Gilder Lehrman Institute ($)

“History by Era” takes its structure from the most basic building blocks of American history: chronology and periodization. We have chosen ten chronological eras: The Americas to 1620; Colonization and Settlement, 1585–1763; American Revolution, 1763–1783; The New Nation, 1783–1815; National Expansion and Reform, 1815–1860; Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877; Rise of Industrial America, 1877–1900; Progressive Era to New Era, 1900–1929; Great Depression and World War II, 1929–1945; and 1945 to the Present. 

DoHistory

See how history is made! This online historiographical toolkit offers how-tos for reading probate records and 18th-century handwriting, collecting oral histories, and interpreting fragments of history.  A site that shows you how to piece together the past from the fragments that have survived. Our case study: Martha Ballard.

Ephemera Society of America

The Society's Web site — www.ephemerasociety.org — connects with thousands of visitors seeking information about ephemera, provides contacts with other collectors and ephemera-related businesses, and includes notices of Society events.

Fashion Era

Fashion-era contains 890 content rich, illustrated pages of Fashion History, Costume History, Clothing, Fashions and Social History.

BLM National Scenic and Historic Trails

National Historic Trails are extended trails that closely follow a historic trail or route of travel of national significance. Designation identifies and protects historic routes, historic remnants, and artifacts for public use and enjoyment. The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for over 5,078 miles of 13 National Historic Trails.

Best Sources for Virginia Research by Time Period (from the Library of Virginia)

Identifying which records in the Library of Virginia's collections will be useful to you in your research largely depends on what time period you are studying.

Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project

The Feeding America project has created an online collection of some of the most important and influential American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The digital archive includes page images of 76 cookbooks from the MSU Library's collection as well as searchable full-text transcriptions. This site also features a glossary of cookery terms and multidimensional images of antique cooking implements from the collections of the MSU Museum.

 Home Economics Archive - Cornell University (final project will include dates 1850-1950) (old link)

HEARTH is a core electronic collection of books and journals in Home Economics and related disciplines. Titles published between 1850 and 1950 were selected and ranked by teams of scholars for their great historical importance. The first phase of this project focused on books published between 1850 and 1925 and a small number of journals. Future phases of the project will include books published between 1926 and 1950, as well as additional journals. The full text of these materials, as well as bibliographies and essays on the wide array of subjects relating to Home Economics, are all freely accessible on this site. This is the first time a collection of this scale and scope has been made available.

Slavery

Digital Library on American Slavery (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

The Digital Library on American Slavery is an expanding resource compiling various independent online collections focused upon race and slavery in the American South, made searchable through a single, simple interface.

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience

In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience presents more than 16,500 pages of texts, 8,300 illustrations, and more than 60 maps. The Web site is organized around thirteen defining migrations that have formed and transformed African America and the nation.

Lowcountry Africana: African American Genealogy in SC, GA and FL

Lowcountry Africana is entirely dedicated to records that document the family and cultural heritage of African Americans in the historic rice-growing areas of South Carolina, Georgia and extreme northeastern Florida, an area that scholars and preservationists have identified as a distinct culture area. Lowcountry Africana was developed with a grant from the Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, South Carolina.

1600's

Pilgrim Ship Lists by Date

These pages represent literally years of work, endless coffee and fingers worn to the bone. This data base has been compiled simply in hopes of easing tedious research for other people. If you copy any of these pages, please acknowledge Anne Stevens did the work.

1700's

Boston 1775 blog

This blog is a miscellany of information about New England just before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and about how that history has been studied, taught, preserved, politicized, mythologized, lost, recovered, discussed, described, distorted, and now digitized.

The 18th Century Material Culture Resource Center

Welcome to the website of the 18th Century Material Culture Resource Center.  This little project of our's was created to serve the community as a reference library for the study of everyday objects used by the inhabitants of North America, her mother country, England, and those countries of Continental Europe who, in one way or another, had an impact on the 13 British Colonies in North America between the years 1600 to 1785.

The First American west: the Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820 (overview)

Unfortunately, the original American Memory page of this has been taken down, but the overall text and bibliography can be found here (Encountering the American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820).

The Junto: A Group Blog on Early American History

The Junto is a group blog made up of junior early Americanists dedicated to providing content of general interest to other early Americanists and those interested in early American history, as well as a forum for discussion of relevant historical and academic topics.

1800's

Langdon's List of 19th & Early 20th Century Photographers

This site provides information about photographers active in the United States from 1844 to 1950. The information comes from city directories, business and industry directories, classified advertising, tax lists, census, published sources and photographer's marks on the images themselves.

Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog

This blog is my attempt to explore that conflict and its legacy. I hope that readers will not confuse my general irreverence with a lack of seriousness. That would be a mistake, because the Civil War is the most horrific event that’s occurred in this nation’s history. This blog exists as much to clarify my own thinking as it is to inform others, and if my writing here seems muddled and even contradictory at times, that’s because my own thinking on the war — and my own Southern heritage — is a work in progress. As much as anything else, this blog is a chronicle of that process.

Civil War - National Park Service Soldiers and Sailors Database

Center for Civil War Research
The University of Mississippi established the Center for Civil War Research in the spring of 2009. In scope, the Center is designed to promote a more thorough understanding of the American Civil War, its history and its scholarship, among the various constituencies of the University.

A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Ohio State University)

Affectionately known as the "OR", the 128 volumes of the Official Records provide the most comprehensive, authoritative, and voluminous reference on Civil War operations. The reports contained in the Official Records are those of the principal leaders who fought the battles and then wrote their assessments days, weeks, and sometimes months later. The Official Records are thus the eyewitness accounts of the veterans themselves. As such they are "often flawed sources – poorly written in some cases, lacking perspective in others, frequently contradictory and occasionally even self-serving." Nevertheless, they were compiled before the publication of other literature on the subject that, in several cases, caused some veterans to alter their memory and perception of events later in life.

The Diaries of Julia Lawrence Hasbrouck

Julia lived and wrote the majority of her diaries in New York City, which makes the diaries especially important to historians concentrating on New York City; she then moved to a rural community in upstate New York, a transition that her diaries describe as a difficult one.  The move was necessitated by her family’s economic losses during the Panic of 1857 and Julia, like most middle class women of her period, had little power over the financial choices of her husband, but was profoundly affected by them.  Julia’s diary vividly expresses the tension in the lives of middle class women who were charged with raising responsible children and creating an emotionally sustaining home environment, but had little power over the world they inhabited.

Phelps' Travelers Guide Through the United States  (USGEnWeb Archives)

Railroad, Canal, Stage and Steam-Boat Routes.
Accompanied by a new map of the United States
Published in New York by Ensign & Thayer, 1850

History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860 (good to use with agricultural censuses, for example)

1900's

WWI Online: Home Before the Leaves Fall

Home Before the Leaves Fall: a Great War Centennial Exhibition (HBTLF) tells the story of the war years using these resources and seeks to expose these sources to broader use and inquiry by digitization and active public participation and engagement. Collaborative by design, HBTLF is a multi-institutional project: articles curated by individual scholars and experts guide readers through the many threads that weave materials into a narrative tapestry, while social media spotlight newly digitized content, creative and educational use of materials, and news of other Great War commemorations.

1930 Census: ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF OCCUPATIONS