Unidentified artist. Benjamin Hawkins and the Creek Indians, circa 1805, oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 49 7/8 inches. Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art, gift of The Museum Association, Inc.

Recommended Links for Primary Sources and Lesson Plans

As we all know, the Internet offers many opportunities for teachers to locate primary sources and lesson plans. Below is a list of quality web sites and online projects recommended by Teaching American History in South Carolina. We expect this list to grow as we discover new web projects. Please feel free to contact us to tell us of your favorite sites for primary sources and lesson plans. Your suggestions will help us revise and expand this list.

 

• American Experience, PBS
  www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/index.html
  
  Since its debut in 1988, American Experience has brought to life the incredible characters and epic stories that helped form this nation. American Experience Online premiered in November of 1995 and has produced over 60 feature sites. These sites complement the viewing experience by encouraging in-depth exploration of the issues surrounding each documentary subject beyond the television screen. Teachers can search American Experience films and web sites to explore the past on diverse subjects such as John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the development of the telephone, the life of Eleanor Roosevelt, and much more.

• American Memory Project, Library of Congress
  memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html
  
  American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections. The National Digital Library Program, which is part of the Library of Congress, is working to digitize the distinctive, historical Americana materials from the Library's collections and to make them available online to users worldwide. Special collections to be digitized include the documents, films, manuscripts, photographs, maps, and sound recordings that tell the American story.

• Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  docsouth.unc.edu
  
  Documenting the American South (DAS), an electronic collection sponsored by the Academic Affairs Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research. Currently, DAS includes six digitization projects: slave narratives, first- person narratives, Southern literature, Confederate imprints, materials related to the church in the black community, and North Carolina.
  

• EDSITEment, National Endowment for the Humanities edsitement.neh.gov
  
  EDSITEment offers a treasure trove for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies. The EDSITEment experience includes a user-friendly web site with links to over 100 of the top humanities sites and online lesson plans which integrate EDSITEment resources to promote active learning. All web sites linked to EDSITEment cover a wide range of humanities subjects, from American history to literature, world history and culture, language, art, and archaeology.
  
  
• The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
  www.gilderlehrman.org
  
  Founded in 1994, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History promotes the study and love of American history. Increasingly national and international in scope, the Institute targets audiences ranging from students to scholars to the general public. It creates history-centered schools and academic research centers, organizes seminars and enrichment programs for educators, partners with school districts to implement Teaching American History grants, produces print and electronic publications and traveling exhibitions, and sponsors lectures by eminent historians. The Institute also funds awards including the Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and George Washington Book Prizes and offers fellowships for scholars to work in history archives, including the Gilder Lehrman Collection.
  
  The Institute maintains this website to serve as a portal for American history on the Web; to offer high-quality educational material for teachers, students, historians, and the public; and to provide up-to-the-minute information about the Institute's programs and activities.

• National Archives and Records Administration
  www.archives.gov
  
  The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent federal agency that preserves our nation's history and defines us as a people by overseeing the management of all federal records. Teachers can use the search engine to locate specific documents or they can access the Digital Classroom link find lesson plans and tips on using primary sources. The Exhibit Hall link contains online exhibits on a variety of historical subjects. Featured documents include the Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 19th Amendment, the North Atlantic Treaty, and a letter from Jackie Robinson.
  

• National History Education Clearinghouse
  teachinghistory.org
  

The National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC) is designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. The Clearinghouse builds on and disseminates the valuable lessons learned by more than 800 TAH projects designed to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge and understanding of traditional U.S. history.

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) and the Stanford University History Education Group have created the Clearinghouse with the goal of placing history content, teaching strategies, current research and issues, community building, and easy access to resources at center stage.

We aim to bring together the many communities involved in improving history education and professional development for history teachers, allowing practitioners, historians, administrators, and history educators to present multiple perspectives, debate current issues, and work together to improve history teaching in classrooms throughout the United States.

• Our Documents: A National Initiative on American History, Civics and Service
  www.ourdocuments.gov
  
  The Our Documents initiative is a cooperative effort among National History Day, The National Archives and Records Administration, and USA Freedom Corps. To help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy, we invite you to explore 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to "form a more perfect union."

• Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies
  smithsonianeducation.org
  
  The Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies interprets the collective knowledge of the Smithsonian and serves as a gateway to its educational resources. Through research, publishing, and staff development programs for the education and museum communities, the Center promotes the understanding and use of museums. The Center publishes educational materials that emphasize inquiry-based learning with primary sources and museum collections. The Center provides photographs and reproductions, guidelines for working with them, and links to other online resources. Many lesson plans are interdisciplinary and may be listed in more than one area.
  

• South Carolina Digital Library
  www.scmemory.org
  
  The South Carolina Digital Library (SCDL) is a collaborative effort that includes South Carolina’s schools, libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. SCDL’s mission is to encourage our collaborators to create, maintain, and promote digital collections that represent South Carolina's historical and cultural resources while following state-level guidelines that are based on national standards and best practices. SCDL intends to be the model for other institutions digitizing materials in the state, and will strive to provide the knowledge, resources, and capacity necessary for those institutions to complete their digital projects. SCDL also seeks to enhance the overall education and scholarship of South Carolina's citizens by coordinating free and unlicensed access to these digital collections through a central web presence.

Recommended National History Day Internet Links

National History Day in South Carolina
Provides details and information about National History Day in South Carolina.
http://nhd.sc.gov

State and Regional Coordinator
A direct link for contacting the coordinator of South Carolina's National History Day.
http://nhd.sc.gov/calendar/contact.htm

National History Day
Excellent information regarding the mission of National History Day, how to get involved locally and the scholarships awarded.
www.nationalhistoryday.com

2009 Teaching American History in South Carolina Project. "Statement of Use and Reproduction."