Primary Sources, Artifacts, Photos, Videos, and Maps
revised 07-28-16
Sources are listed in groupings by alphabetical order and can also be found on topic pages.
Click on the button for web links.
Click on the button for web links.
General Resources
*a product of the Wisconsin Historical Society
*numerous primary sources available for reference and reading * guidebook for teachers Great for: Explorers (Columbus, Cook, Drake) CA Missions (F.Palou) American Settlement (T. Jefferson, J. Strong Smith, Lewis &Clark) |
*the best organized database of images and text gathered from the UC system, libraries, and a variety of historical museums.
*collection is sorted into themes for each major time period of California history. |
* Virtual maps created using historical photographs/postcards
*Zooming in on the map will give you the historical photos of that location. There are also photo collections including: 1906 Earthquake, Japantown, Ship building at Hunters Point, 1915 World's Fair, Death Valley, Railroad, Their historic postcard collection and signs of San Francisco could be a pretty fun lessons. |
The Library of Congress has much of its collections posted on line.
There are prints, photos, maps, letters, diaries, newspaper articles, videos, sound recordings and more. Collections can be searched by topic or by type. For example, there's a "California As I Saw It" Collection. Some collections also have companion resources for teachers and there's a family resource section. The site should be pre-searched by adults for student use. Some of my favorites are: Birds Eye View of SF from a Balloon in 1901/02 and a listing of San Francisco Maps. |
*Much of their collection is merged into Calisphere.
*The Picture This collection is specifically designed for classrooms. It can be searched by theme, used for discussions, or customized by teachers. |
OldSF is a project created by two guys. They have taken the photos from the San Francisco Public Library and placed them on a Google Map. The map can be searched by date which makes it an amazing tool to see the development of San Francisco.
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Subject Specific
A Bethlehem Steel promo video posted through
the Prelinger Archives |
A comprehensive photo history resource on
the Transcontinental Railroad |
*collections of photos posted
*Great for Transcontinental Railroad and Discrimination |
*an interactive map which lets the user click on streets in SF and learn the history of how the street got its name.
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Other
The links listed below have an extensive digital collections but they are difficult to browse.
You really need to know what you're searching for to be able to find it.
You really need to know what you're searching for to be able to find it.