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History
History Research Materials
Black Freedom Struggle in the United States
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Open Access collection of primary documents from 1790 to the modern day detailing the black struggle for freedom in the United States.
Chicago Tribune Historical Edition
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue in 1849 to 1994. This collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
FactCite – American History
Use at Home? Yes
Description: More than 6,000 illustrated articles of people, places, and events in American history.
FactCite – Defining Moments in U.S. History
Use at Home? Yes
Description: This resource for middle school students and above explores the historical context and consequences of 30 defining moments in United States history, such as the Battle of Gettysburg, the Great War and the Jazz Age and the Attack on Pearl Harbor. Each event is treated in detail and supplemented with primary source documents, timelines, biographies, reading lists, glossaries, and photographs.
Fact Cite – The Lincoln Library
Use at Home? Yes
Description: American History – More than 6,000 illustrated articles of people, places, and events in American history.
Biography for Beginners – Illustrated biographies written especially for beginning and striving readers.
Greek & Roman Mythology – 500 articles on Greek and Roman mythological figures with more than 300 illustrations.
U.S. & World Biography – 10,000 biographies of famous people from around the world. More than 2,000 illustrations.
Historic Map Works
Use at Home? Yes
Description: This high quality, full color digital collection of historic maps is one of the most extensive available. The core of the collection consists of over 1.5 million maps of the United States and the world.
History Reference Source
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Covering both U.S. and world history topics, History Reference Source is a full-text database featuring historical reference books, magazines, journals and thousands of primary source documents.
Illinois Digital Archives
Use at Home? Yes
Description: St. Charles, Kane County and Illinois local history documents, maps and photos.
Local Historical Newspapers
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Searchable database of local digital microfilm 1842-1998.
NewspaperArchive
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Locate obituaries, and other news stories in full page views of historical newspapers from across the world dating from 1607.
Salem History
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Contains great historical reference books including: Great Lives From History, The Decades In America, and Milestone Documents. A great place to start your research.
Sanborn Maps – Illinois Collection
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The maps provide a wealth of information, such as building outline, size and shape. Come explore Illinois’s rich and diverse building history.
TrueFlix
Use at Home? Yes
Description: Includes digital Scholastic True Books, links to further information in Grolier Online and websites about each topic. Non-fiction topics include: continents, ancient civilizations, U.S. government westward expansion, natural disasters, space, human body and ecosystems.
History Websites
American History Websites
- Chronicling America
- Digital Collections from the Library of Congress
- FBI Records: The Vault
- Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
- Historical Map & Chart Collection – from NOAA
- National Archives Catalog
- Newspaper Navigator from the Library of Congress
- NOAA Historical Map & Chart Collection
- PBS History
- On-This-Day.com