Research Guides

National History Day, in cooperation with the Library of Congress has developed the following guides:

Virginia History Day, sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University, made a Elementary Teacher Guide.

Research Locations

The Texas State Library & Archives Commission put together a great website just for Texas History Day students! To visit this external site click here!

Here is a guide to help students with their research using a fun research guide.

Texas Archive of the Moving Image

“Our ever-growing archive includes home movies, amateur films, advertisements, local television, and industrial and corporate productions, as well as Hollywood and internationally produced moving images of Texas. We encourage you to explore more than a century of moving images here.” This is perfect for documentary, website, and exhibit categories if you are looking for original footage!

Library of Congress

Some tips for searching the Library online.

  • Some of the items are not primary sources, some are secondary.
  • If you are not planning to visit in person, make sure to select “online” when you refine your search.
  • Strongest time period for the Library is 1870s to 1920s
  • Remember documents, photographs, etc, are organized by people, and they might not have used the same words so you need to have a variety of keywords to search.

Search the Library of Congress Collections

Teaching wth Primary Sources with the Library of Congress

  • Primary Source Teacher Analysis Guides
  • Primary Source Student Anaylsis Tools
  • Primary Source Classroom sets

Click Here to Explore Teaching with Primary Sources with the Library

US House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives

“This year’s National History Day theme is Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas. As the contest theme book explains, a frontier represents “uncharted territory.” A frontier could be an unexplored geographical location or a brand-new idea. An individual can break through a barrier and blaze a new trail for a previously unrepresented population. Since its creation, the U.S. House of Representatives has contended with a myriad of uncharted territories, both geographical and ideological.”

“Consider these topics and selected resources as inspiration for your project. This page collects historical summaries and primary sources about the expansion of the country, space exploration, voting rights, labor rights, and civil rights. All, at one point in time, were uncharted territories.”

Click Here for US House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives

Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project

This is a digital documentary edition that is transcribing and annotating over 20,000 documents written to Mississippi’s governors between the secession crisis in 1859, through the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and the emergence of the Jim Crow South in 1882. The thousands of primary source documents currently available at no cost on the website (with more being added) create a rich body of easy-to-use primary sources for NHD students that fit any theme. There is an introductory video on how to use the website specifically for NHD students here.

Click Here for the Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi Project