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U.S. Time Periods » 1914-1945: World Wars
See Featured 101 Resources
HistoryWired: A few of our favorite things offers a virtual tour of selected objects not on display in the National Museum of American History. Artifacts are presented in a dozen categories, including the arts, commerce, home...  (Smithsonian Institution)
Eleanor Roosevelt: American Visionary features photos and artifacts from the life of one of the most dynamic and controversial First Ladies in U.S. history. She was the first First Lady to hold regular press conferences...  (National Park Service)
Rise and Fall of Jim Crow looks at the century of segregation following the Civil War (1863-1954). "Jim Crow," a name taken from a popular 19th-century minstrel song, came to personify government-sanctioned...  (WNET, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
The War Relocation Camps of World War II: When Fear Was Stronger than Justice examines the causes and effects of President Franklin Roosevelt's executive order, signed two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, that moved nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Yiddish Radio Project preserves recordings from the golden age of Yiddish radio (1930s-50s). Online exhibits include "Yiddish melodies in Swing," the history of Yiddish radio, "Rabbi Rubin's Court of the...  (Sound Portrait Productions, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Teaching About the Holocaust offers teachers an online workshop, teaching guide, chronology, personal histories, lessons, and other publications for teaching about the Holocaust. Online learning activities and...  (Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Holocaust Encyclopedia weaves photos, narratives, and historical footage into a web presentation on more than 20 Holocaust topics, including antisemitism, pogroms, the Third Reich, the "final solution," the...  (Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Harry Truman and Independence, Missouri: features the home and story of our thirty-third President. Upon returning home after World War I, Truman married his childhood sweetheart, started a clothing store that failed, and...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Remembering Jim Crow is a companion to a radio documentary, and examines the system that, for much of the 20th century, barred many African Americans from their rights as U.S. citizens. Read personal...  (American RadioWorks, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
On the Homefront features posters and images illustrating some of the ways American's at home contributed to war efforts overseas during World Wars I and II. The images are presented in 5 categories...  (Library of Congress)
Reporting America at War explores the role of journalists in covering America's wars. The website, companion to a PBS documentary, offers a teachers guide with lessons on press censorship, message control...  (Insignia Films and WETA, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
There She Is: A History of Miss America accompanies a film that tracks the contest from its inception in 1921 as an exuberant local seaside pageant. The website includes a transcript of the film and learning activities...  (WGBH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Eleanor Roosevelt brings to life one of the century's most influential women. See the Roosevelt family tree, newspaper columns written by Mrs. Roosevelt, a clip from a TV appearance, a timeline, and a...  (WGBH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
A Date Which Will Live in Infamy shows the typewritten draft of the December 8, 1941, speech in which Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan. The draft shows Roosevelt's hand-written edits...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Attu: North American Battleground of World War II is the site of the only land battle on the North American continent during World War II. In June 1942, Japanese forces invaded Attu and other Aleautian islands. Americans feared the...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Our Documents features 100 milestone documents in U.S. history. Each week, the website highlights 3 documents. Speeches, treaties, Supreme Court cases, patent designs, and Constitutional...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey examines the life and legacy of this mediator and U.N. diplomat who was the first person of color anywhere in the world to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace...  (ETV Endowment of South Carolina, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers, and Broadcasters During WWII spotlights 8 out of over 100 American women who secured official military accreditation as war correspondents, if not actual front-line assignments during World War II...  (Library of Congress)
History Matters is a gateway to web resources and threaded discussions for high school and college teachers of U.S. history survey courses. It presents first-person narratives about the experiences of...  (George Mason University, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
American Environmental Photographs, 1891-1936 consists of 4,500 photographs of natural environments, ecologies, and plant communities in the United States taken between 1891 and 1936. These photographs show a wide range of...  (Library of Congress)
When Work is Done is a lesson plan that uses photographs as primary sources and that can help students develop historical analysis skills. After completing the introductory lesson using photographs as...  (Library of Congress)
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election, 1918-1920 consists of 59 sound recordings of speeches by American leaders at the turn of the century. Speakers include Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt...  (Library of Congress)
Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 introduces students to primary documents related to women and social movements in the U.S. between 1830 and 1930, including letters and newspapers articles on the role of African...  (Binghamton University (NY), supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Remembering Pearl Harbor describes the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and features the USS Arizona, a battleship on which 1,177 sailors and marines perished. Photos, charts, documents, and research...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Woodrow Wilson: Prophet of Peace examines President Wilson's struggle and ultimate failure to reach the ideal of achieving lasting world peace through the League of Nations. Through various activities students can...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
The Zimmermann Telegram is lesson plan aims to help students understand the causes of World War I and why the U.S. intervened. In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
The Great War (World War I) features interviews with 19 historians who were consulted in the making of the 8-part PBS series on World War I. Maps, bibliographies, online links, and a timeline are also at the...  (KCET, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
The Fight examines the 1938 boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling in the context of African-American history and the coming war with Germany. 70,000 fans crammed into Yankee Stadium...  (WBGH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
After the Day of Infamy offers 12 hours of interviews recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor from more than 200 individuals in cities and towns across the U.S. Audio and...  (Library of Congress)
Pearl Harbor Raid is a detailed account of the December 7, 1941, attack. More than 100 photos and descriptions look at the 7 U.S. battleships moored along Battleship Row that morning, attacks off Ford...  (Department of Navy)
Elections looks at American political parties of the past, presidential inaugurations, images of presidents and first ladies, our first uniform election day, political cartoons by Herbert Block...  (Library of Congress)
Vote: The Machinery of Democracy looks at the history and variety of voting methods in the U.S. -- the voice vote, "party ticket" (paper ballots listing candidates from just one party), Australian ballot, gear and...  (National Museum of American History, supported by Smithsonian Institution)
The E Pluribus Unum Project examines Americans' attempt to make "one from many" in three pivotal decades: the 1770s, 1850s, and 1920s. Each decade is framed by an introductory essay with links to key topics and...  (Assumption College, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Henry Luce is the companion website for a film about the missionary's son who founded Time and Life magazines and became, in the late 1930s, America's most powerful mass...  (WNET, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures presents images published from 1914-19 by two New York newspapers. The images, produced by a new "rotogravure" printing process, show events of the war alongside news and...  (Library of Congress)
Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Photogravures provides teaching materials for learning from newspaper images about the Great War. Features include a timeline, events and statistics, pictorial highlights, the Lusitania disaster...  (Library of Congress)
FSA/OWI Color Photographs Collection, 1939-1945 presents 1,600 color photos -- rural and small-town life, migrant labor, the Great Depression, railroads, military training, aircraft manufacturing, and mobilizing for World War II. A...  (Library of Congress)
Bound for Glory: America in Color is the first major exhibit of 70 prints (made from color transparencies taken between 1939 and 1943) showing the effects of the Depression on people in rural America and small towns...  (Library of Congress)
Great Depression: Dust Bowl Migration includes photos, a teachers guide, and other resources for learning about the largest migration in American history. This migration occurred in the 1930s when poor soil conservation...  (Library of Congress)
America from the Great Depression to World War II: Photographs from the FSA-OWI, 1935-1945 contains links to thousands of the most famous documentary photographs ever produced. The Farm Security Administrations's photographs cover the Great Depression, while the Office of...  (Library of Congress)
Guide to Harlem Renaissance Materials features music, art, and writing from Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. Learn about Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, James...  (Library of Congress)
Presidential Timeline of the 20th Century features a multimedia exhibit of key events and decisions that U.S. presidents faced in the 20th century: the stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the atomic bomb, Little Rock school...  (University of Texas at Austin, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Holocaust Memorial Museum: For Students offers multimedia exhibits filled with artifacts and photos that help students learn about the Holocaust. Topics include Kristallnacht, the St. Louis ocean liner, the rescue of the...  (Holocaust Memorial Museum)
TeachingHistory.org provides lessons, teaching guides, best practices, and other resources for teaching history. See videos on "what is historical thinking," teaching history in elementary school, and...  (TeachingHistory.org, supported by Department of Education)
Congress Establishes Thanksgiving describes the various resolutions and proclamations that established and shaped Thanksgiving...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Pictures of World War II presents more than 100 photos from battlefronts around the world. Topics include aviation, battle of Britain, France, Germany, the Holocaust, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Japan, naval...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Guide to World War I Materials includes photos, essays, primary documents, films, and sound recordings related to World War I. Read news accounts of the war, including in The Stars and Stripes, a newspaper written...  (Library of Congress)
Springwood: Birthplace and Home to Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only place in the U.S. where a President was born, maintained a lifelong connection, and lies buried. The estate, located in Hyde Park on the Hudson River (New York), is where...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Online Workshop: Teaching About the Holocaust provides videos from workshops on teaching about the Holocaust. Videos include historical photos and text...  (Holocaust Memorial Museum)
Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of the American Century is the companion website for a film about our 28th President. Discover the issues that made the 1912 election important. Learn how Wilson tried to keep us out of World War I, but how...  (KCET, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Churchill and the Great Republic presents more than 200 photos, speeches, and letters from one of the most important and colorful leaders of the 20th century and in all British history. Best known as Prime Minister...  (Library of Congress)
Emma Goldman is the companion website for a film about this Russian immigrant who championed women's equality, workers' rights, and free universal education. Goldman (1869-1940) defined the limits...  (WGBH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Struggle tells the story of a man, a union, and a time when millions of Americans joined a just cause. The Fight in the Fields is a portrait of Cesar Chavez, the charismatic leader of the...  (Independent Television Service, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Samuel Gompers Papers Project is a documentary editing project that collects, annotates, and makes available primary sources of American labor history. It includes microfilm, photocopied material, and annotation...  (University of Maryland Department of History, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Papers of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association offers information about the life of this black nationalist leader, who created a "Back to Africa" movement in the U.S...  (UCLA, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
First Lady to the World: Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill is a curriculum-oriented guide to the work of the active First Lady. The site uses a retreat she built on her husband's estate as a focus but gives readings and suggested school...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Origins of American Animation offers 21 animated films and 2 fragments, which span the years 1900 to 1921. The films include clay, puppet, and cut-out animation, as well as pen drawings. They point to a...  (Library of Congress)
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, ca. 1851-1991 presents 4000 images of American cityscapes, landscapes, and group portraits...  (Library of Congress)
The Learning Page helps teachers use the Library of Congress's "American Memory" website to teach U.S. history and culture. It includes suggestions for using photos, objects, life histories and other...  (Library of Congress)
From Jim Crow to Linda Brown: A Retrospective of the African-American Experience, 1897-1953 helps students understand themes of African American life in the first half of the 20th century and explore to what extent the African American experience was "separate but equal."...  (Library of Congress)
Life of the People: Realist Prints and Drawings, 1912-1948 presents American prints and drawings relating the condition of working people, American labor and industry, and the experience and achievements of minority groups. The exhibit...  (Library of Congress)
Voices from the Dust Bowl, 1940-1941 documents the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941. This collection, from The Charles L. Todd and...  (Library of Congress)
Arthur Szyk: Artist for Freedom features one of America's leading political illustrators and cartoonists. Throughout his career -- in his native Poland, in Paris where he trained, and in America, the country he...  (Library of Congress)
FDR's Fireside Chat on the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program presents the text of one of Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" with the American people. In this 07/24, 1933, radio broadcast, he addressed issues of the Great Depression and...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
FDR's First Inaugural Address: Declaring War on the Great Depression provides photos from that time. It includes Franklin Roosevelt's first inaugural address, in which he said, "I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Radio Fights Jim Crow looks at a series of radio programs aimed to mend the racial and ethnic divisions that threatened America...  (American RadioWorks, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Truman Presidential Library and Museum helps students and educators work with primary source materials. The project offers documents, photographs, records, cartoons, and other archival material for research projects...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Keys Ranch: Where Time Stood Still tells the story of Bill Keys, whose ranch was the center of a desert network of homesteaders and miners in the early 1900s. At age 15, Keys left his Russian parents' home in Nebraska...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Documents Related to Churchill and FDR examines the friendship and working relations that developed between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill beginning in 1940. Their...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind presents interview clips, a timeline, an online forum of scholars, information about people and events in the film, and a teachers' guide about this immigrant laborer who, in the early...  (WGBH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Photographs of the 369th Infantry and African Americans During World War I features an all-black regiment that rose to fame at a time when the Army, federal workers, and other parts of society were segregated. The 369th Infantry, also known as the "Harlem...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
From Slavery to Civil Rights is a timeline of African-American history. Photos, broadsides, maps, and other items are organized around time periods: slavery, abolition, antebellum, Civil War, reconstruction...  (Library of Congress)
The Battle of Midway: Turning the Tide in the Pacific examines a pivotal World War II battle. In the spring of 1942, Japan attempted to establish a toehold in the Aleutian Islands, convert Midway into an air base for invading Hawaii, and...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
What Are We Fighting for Over There? Perspectives on the Great War is a unit in which students use primary documents to develop an understanding of the World War I era, including how the U.S. prepared for and participated in the war and how the war...  (Library of Congress)
Santa Clara County, California's Historic Silicon Valley features 28 historic places that illustrate how this fertile valley blossomed from small agricultural towns linked by railroad into a center of technological innovation. Located south...  (National Park Service)
Photographs from the Chicago Daily News: 1902-1933 comprises over 55,000 images of urban life captured on glass plate negatives between 1902 and 1933 by photographers employed by the Chicago Daily News, then one of Chicago's leading...  (Library of Congress)
The Grandparent/Elder Project is a lesson in which students learn about World War I and the Great Depression by locating and studying primary and secondary sources and by interviewing a grandparent or other elder...  (Library of Congress)
Creating Hypertext Dialogues Drawn from Narrative History Collections invites students to use documents from "California As I Saw It: First Person Narratives, 1849-1900," to create hyperscripts depicting the motivations, expectations, fears, and...  (Library of Congress)
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy provides a timeline, maps, teachers' guide, and more about the 1931 rape accusation made by two white women against 9 nine black teenagers in Paint Rock, Alabama. The incident began...  (WGBH, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
Sow the Seeds of Victory! Posters from the Food Administration During World War I tells how Herbert Hoover, head of the new U.S. Food Administration, convinced Americans to conserve food during the Great War. Homeowners were urged to sign pledge cards to conserve...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
Learning About Immigration through Oral History is a lesson plan where a team of middle-school students search the Library of Congress website and other resources to learn how to conduct oral history interviews...  (Library of Congress)
Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929 documents the widespread prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition to a mass consumer economy, and the role of the government in this transition. The collection...  (Library of Congress)
Powers of Persuasion -- Poster Art of World War II provides a standards-based lesson on how the use of posters during WWII helped win over the hearts and minds of the American people...  (National Archives and Records Administration)
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940 presents 2,900 life histories from 300 writers from 24 states. These histories describe individuals' families, incomes, occupations, political views, religions, diets, and...  (Library of Congress)
By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 is a collection of 900 boldly colored and graphically diverse posters produced as part of FDR's New Deal. These striking silkscreens, lithographs, and woodcuts were created to...  (Library of Congress)
New Deal Network, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute provides research and teaching resources devoted to the public works and arts projects of the New Deal, including information on how the Great Depression affected children, and workers...  (Columbia University, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the U.S. Constitution tells the story that began during World War II, when nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced from their homes into detention camps established by the U.S. government. Many spent...  (Smithsonian Institution)
Liberty Ships and Victory Ships, America's Lifeline in War tells the story of two World War II ship-building efforts. In 1941, with war raging in Europe, President Roosevelt authorized the production of 441-foot cargo ships. These "Liberty...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
World War II Military Situation Maps, 1944-1945 contains maps showing troop positions beginning on June 6, 1944, to July 26, 1945. Starting with the D-Day Invasion, the maps give daily details on the military campaigns in Western...  (Library of Congress)
Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age, 1831-1929 portrays the early history of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico through first-person accounts, political writings, and histories drawn from the Library of Congress's general collections...  (Library of Congress)
Herbert Hoover: Iowa Farm Boy and World Humanitarian is a curriculum-oriented site using the birthplace of the American president to introduce readings and suggested theme topics for student papers. The site shows photos and drawings of...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties is a multi-format ethnographic field collection project, undertaken during the New Deal, that includes sound recordings, still photographs, drawings, and written documents from a...  (Library of Congress)
Figuring Somepin 'Bout the Great Depression is a lesson in which students examine songs, interviews, and photos of migrant farm workers in California during the Great Depression and then create a scrapbook from the point of view...  (Library of Congress)
Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South is a research project on African American life during the Jim Crow era (c. 1890s-1950s). It was a time of undeniable oppression and exploitation of black Americans; however, these 60...  (Center for Documentary Studies, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
The New Deal: North Carolina's Reconstruction? invites students to interview imaginary North Carolina residents who lived during the Reconstruction and Depression eras. Each interview is historically accurate and supports a thesis...  (Library of Congress)
The Great Depression and the 1990s asks students to research a modern government program having roots in the New Deal. Following their research, students participate in a congressional forum where they debate which...  (Library of Congress)
Doing the Decades, 1890-1941: Group Investigations in Twentieth Century U.S. History is a two-month team research project for 9-10th graders that uses Library of Congress resources to focus on long-term change in U.S. history. Students gather, analyze, and evaluate...  (Library of Congress)
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime: The Effects of the New Deal and the Great Depression examines primary sources -- from photographs to oral histories recorded by the famous Federal Writer's Project -- to develop a sense of the profound impact the Great Depression had on...  (Library of Congress)
Iron Hill School: An African-American One-Room School is a curriculum-oriented guide focusing on a school constructed in 1923 in a rural area of northern Delaware, one of more than 80 schools for African-American children built between...  (National Park Service, Teaching with Historic Places)
Margaret Sanger Papers Project looks at the work of this advocate for women's reproductive freedom. Sanger worked to help develop simpler, less costly, and more effective methods of birth control. Bibliographies...  (New York University, supported by National Endowment for the Humanities)
The Hoover Museum -- Just For Kids portrays the life of President Hoover using resources from the Hoover Presidential Library such as a chronology, a biography of his wife, Lou Henry, excerpts from speeches, political...  (National Archives and Records Administration)

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