American History Online Textbook

The readings included here are not intended to be a complete overview of American History. Each article in the textbook covers a topic in my US History Curriculum. These can certainly be used as a free online textbook for your US History classroom. Additional sources are recommended to fill in the gaps and provide context for each era. 

If you need this US History textbook as a PDF, you can save each page or paste the text into a Google Doc and convert to PDF. 

Each of these articles in the textbook aligns with my curriculum and interactive notebook activities and is perfect for your 8th grade through 11th grade students.

Civilizations in the Americas

• Early Mesoamerican Civilizations
• The Maya
• The Inca
• The Aztec Empire
• The Iroquois Confederacy
• Eastern Woodlands Peoples
• Southwestern Native American Tribes
• Mississippian Culture
• Tribes of the Great Plains
• Great Basin American Indian Tribes
• California & Northwest Coast Indian Tribes

Exploration and Encounter

• Voyages of European Explorers
• Spanish Conquistadors
• The Columbian Exchange
• The Triangle of Trade
• The Middle Passage and Transatlantic Slave Trade

The 13 Colonies & American Revolution

• Jamestown Colony
• Comparing Jamestown & Plymouth Colonies
• Comparing the New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies
• The Proclamation of 1763
• British Acts Anger the American Colonists
• Patriots, Loyalists, and Those Neutral to Revolution
• New Ideas Influence the American Revolution
• Important People of the American Revolution
• A Timeline of the American Revolution

The Constitution and Early America

• Compromises of the Constitution
• Washington’s Cabinet
• The First Political Parties: Federalists & Democratic-Republicans
• Early Events & Dilemmas
• The Louisiana Purchase
• Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery
• The Monroe Doctrine
• Important Early Supreme Court Cases
• The War of 1812
• Andrew Jackson and the Common Man
• The Trail of Tears
• Andrew Jackson Vs...

Sectionalism and Manifest Destiny

• The Battle of the Alamo
• Manifest Destiny
• The California Gold Rush
• Reform Movements of the 1800s
• The Underground Railroad
• Compromises Over Slavery Divide the Nation

The Civil War

• Events Leading up to the Civil War
• Comparing the Union and Confederacy
• The Speeches and Words of Abraham Lincoln
• Leading Figures of the Civil War
• Important Battles of the Civil War

The Reconstruction Era

• Plans for Reconstruction
• The Reconstruction Amendments
• Carpetbaggers & Scalawags
• Movements for Equality After the Civil War
• The Compromise of 1877 Ends Reconstruction
• The Jim Crow Era

The Gilded Age

• The Transcontinental Railroad
• Exodusters and the Homestead Act
• Inventions of the Industrial Revolution
• The American Melting Pot
• Tenements and Urbanization in America
• Child Labor in America
• Gilded Age Robber Barons
• Progressive Era Reforms
• Muckrakers of the Progressive Era
• American Policies for Imperialism
• Timeline of the Age of Imperialism

World War 1

• Marching Toward War
• Timeline of World War 1
• The Zimmerman Note
• Understanding World War 1 Propaganda
• New Weapons of WW1
• World War 1 at Home
• The 14 Points and Treaty of Versailles
• The Big 4 at Versailles
• Understanding the Treaty of Versailles

The Roaring 20's

• The Great Migration 
• The Prohibition Era 
• Roaring 20’s Culture 
• The Harlem Renaissance 
• Flappers and Jazz
• The Red Scare
• The Tulsa Massacre 
• The Scopes Trial and Teaching Evolution

The Great Depression

• Black Tuesday and the Stock Crash
• The Dust Bowl
• Relief, Reform, and Recovery
• The New Deal's Alphabet Soup
• FDR's Fireside Chats
• Unemployment During the Great Depression

World War 2 and the Holocaust

• The Rise of Dictators
• Appeasement Before WW2
• Important Battles of World War 2
• War in the Pacific
• Internment of Japanese Americans
• The American Nisei Regiments
• The Navajo Code Talkers
• Rosie the Riveter
• The Tuskegee Airmen
• The Night of Broken Glass
• The Holocaust
• The Geneva Convention

The Cold War

• The Berlin Airlift
• The Marshall Plan
• Post-War Organizations
• Containment and the Truman Policy
• The Cuban Missile Crisis
• Comparing the Vietnam and Korean Wars
• The Vietnam War Draft
• Perspectives on the Vietnam War
• Timeline of the Cold War Era

The Civil Rights Movement

• The Montgomery Bus Boycott
• The Little Rock Nine
• The Greensboro Sit-ins
• The Freedom Riders
• The Selma to Montgomery March
• Martin Luther King and the March on Washington
• Important Civil Rights Legislation
• Lyndon Johnson's Great Society
• The Supreme Court and Civil Rights
• Cesar Chavez and Migrant Worker Rights

Modern America

• The Watergate Scandal
• The Reagan Era and Modern America
• America in the 1990s
• The September 11th Terrorist Attacks
• The Black Lives Matter Movement
• The Great Switch: Parties & Ideology

Typos, Mistakes, and Factual Errors

Did you find an error in one of the articles? If so, please submit it here and I can get it fixed!