National History Day
DPLA is proud to be a part of National History Day, a series of contests in which students present research projects related to a historical theme that they’ve developed using primary and secondary sources. Containing millions of primary and secondary sources, DPLA is the perfect complement to National History Day. The page below contains information and resources related to our efforts to increase access to DPLA resources for National History Day students. Questions? Email us at education@dp.la.
2023 Theme: Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas
The 2023 National History Day theme is “Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas.” Students should begin their research with secondary sources to gain a broader context, then progress to finding primary sources, and finally make an argument about the effects of a topic in history. Below are selected free Primary Source Sets that would be useful for exploring this year’s theme.
Primary Source Set: Shrinking the World: Pan American Airways in the Post-War Era
Primary Source Set: California Gold Rush
Primary Source Set: Beginnings of the American Red Cross
Primary Source Set: Commodore Perry’s Expedition to Japan
Primary Source Set: Space Race
Primary Source Set: Cuban Immigration After the Revolution
Primary Source Set: Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
Primary Source Set: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern American Architecture
Primary Source Set: Texas Revolution
Primary Source Set: The Panama Canal
Primary Source Set: The Atomic Bomb and the Nuclear Age
Primary Source Set: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Primary Source Set: Latin American Revolutionaries
Primary Source Set: Mormon Migration
Primary Source Set: Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society
Primary Source Set: Truth, Justice, and the Birth of the Superhero Comic Book
Primary Source Set: Pop Art in the US
Primary Source Set: Nineteenth Century Schools for the Deaf and Blind
Primary Source Set: Stonewall and Its Impact on the Gay Liberation Movement
Primary Source Set: Voting Rights Act of 1965
Primary Source Set: Puerto Rican Migration to the US
Primary Source Set: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Civil Rights Movement in Rural Mississippi
Primary Source Set: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Primary Source Set: Settlement Houses in the Progressive Era
Primary Source Set: Full Steam Ahead: The Steam Engine and Transportation in the Nineteenth Century
Primary Source Set: Immigration and Americanization: 1880-1930
Primary Source Set: African American Soldiers in World War I
Primary Source Set: The Invention of the Telephone
Primary Source Set: Exploration of the Americas
Primary Source Set: The New Woman
Primary Source Set: Women and the Blues
Primary Source Set: The Great Migration
Primary Source Set: Rock n Roll: Beginnings to Woodstock
Primary Source Set: Creating the US Constitution
Primary Source Set: Manifest Destiny
Primary Source Set: Women’s Suffrage: Campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment
Primary Source Set: Postwar Rise of the Suburbs
Primary Source Set: The Impact of Television on News Media
Primary Source Set: The Lewis and Clark Expedition
Exhibition: Two Hundred Years on the Erie Canal
Exhibition: Race to the Moon
Exhibition: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad
Exhibition: The Gold Rush in Nineteenth Century America