Historical Fiction Writing Assignment
The following online resources should be starting points for your first-person historical fiction piece.
Databases and Encyclopedias
Annals of American History
Explore the history of the United States through speeches, historical accounts, memoirs, images and more. Arranged by timeline, and general areas of our nation's past.
US History in Context
Go to browse topics to find your topic, or era, or begin with a specific search.
Biography in Context
Very helpful if you are looking for information on a person of historical importance.
Encyclopedia Brittanica
A wealth of information for most topics, from carpetbaggers to muckrakers
Websites
General Websites, covering most areas of United States History
National Archives
Primary sources, sorted within in each era of American history, including all topics suggested to you by Mrs. Katz
Library of Congress
Many areas of American history are covered here with a variety of primary source documents.
PBS
This great resource features information on key figures and events, and links to primary source documents for these topics: slavery; westward expansion; and abolitionist movement.
Sites by Topic
Reconstruction
Africans in America
American Slave Narratives
Slave Narrative of Harriet Jacobs
Underground Railroad from the National Parks Service
African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
Civil War Primary Resources
The Civil War Letters of Forrest Little
Life of a Confederate Soldier
Freedmen & Southern Society Project:
-Black Residents of Nashville to the Union Convention
-Freedmen's Bureau Agent at Brentsville, Virginia, to the Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of the 10th District of Virginia
After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Emancipation Carolinas:
-Pursuing Citizenship, Justice, and Equality
-N.C. Planter Denying Schoolchildren Use of the Public Roads
-The Difficulty of Obtaining Justice from Local Authorities
-Harassment of Freedpeople in the Vicinity of Wilmington
America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War
Westward Expansion
The Gold Rush
From the Oakland Museum of California:
-Jenny Wimmer's Nugget
-The Crucible Women on the Overland Journey
Chinese Exclusion Act/Railroad workers:
Chinese Exclusion Act from Our Documents
Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts
Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad from PBS American Experience
Chinese Railroad Works in North America Project
Progressive Era
Women's Rights Movement:
Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments
Timeline of Women's Suffrage in the US
Women's Suffrage Primary Sources (Library of Congress)
Seneca Falls Convention
Child Labor/Muckraking
Documenting the Other Half: The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine
Song lyrics: Babies in the Mill by Dorsey Dixon
Let Children Be Children: Exhibit of Lewis Wickes Hine's Crusade Against Child Labor
Nellie Bly, Journalist, from PBS American Experience
Annals of American History
Explore the history of the United States through speeches, historical accounts, memoirs, images and more. Arranged by timeline, and general areas of our nation's past.
US History in Context
Go to browse topics to find your topic, or era, or begin with a specific search.
Biography in Context
Very helpful if you are looking for information on a person of historical importance.
Encyclopedia Brittanica
A wealth of information for most topics, from carpetbaggers to muckrakers
Websites
General Websites, covering most areas of United States History
National Archives
Primary sources, sorted within in each era of American history, including all topics suggested to you by Mrs. Katz
Library of Congress
Many areas of American history are covered here with a variety of primary source documents.
PBS
This great resource features information on key figures and events, and links to primary source documents for these topics: slavery; westward expansion; and abolitionist movement.
Sites by Topic
Reconstruction
Africans in America
American Slave Narratives
Slave Narrative of Harriet Jacobs
Underground Railroad from the National Parks Service
African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
Civil War Primary Resources
The Civil War Letters of Forrest Little
Life of a Confederate Soldier
Freedmen & Southern Society Project:
-Black Residents of Nashville to the Union Convention
-Freedmen's Bureau Agent at Brentsville, Virginia, to the Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of the 10th District of Virginia
After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Emancipation Carolinas:
-Pursuing Citizenship, Justice, and Equality
-N.C. Planter Denying Schoolchildren Use of the Public Roads
-The Difficulty of Obtaining Justice from Local Authorities
-Harassment of Freedpeople in the Vicinity of Wilmington
America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War
Westward Expansion
The Gold Rush
From the Oakland Museum of California:
-Jenny Wimmer's Nugget
-The Crucible Women on the Overland Journey
Chinese Exclusion Act/Railroad workers:
Chinese Exclusion Act from Our Documents
Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts
Workers of the Central Pacific Railroad from PBS American Experience
Chinese Railroad Works in North America Project
Progressive Era
Women's Rights Movement:
Women's Suffrage and the 19th Amendment
Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments
Timeline of Women's Suffrage in the US
Women's Suffrage Primary Sources (Library of Congress)
Seneca Falls Convention
Child Labor/Muckraking
Documenting the Other Half: The Social Reform Photography of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine
Song lyrics: Babies in the Mill by Dorsey Dixon
Let Children Be Children: Exhibit of Lewis Wickes Hine's Crusade Against Child Labor
Nellie Bly, Journalist, from PBS American Experience