A site of interest to students of 18th Century America is Archiving Early America. Archiving Early America contains selected facsimiles (in .jpg format) from the Keigwin and Mathews Collection of early American documents. Most of these facsimiles are taken from early American newspapers and magazines and include the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, the Northwest Ordinance, and Jay's...

The David Rumsey Map Collection, which is provided by Cartography Associates, "contains to date over 7,180 maps online and focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America cartographic history materials." The vast material provided for viewing and printing for personal use includes atlases, globes, books, maritime charts, and a great deal more. Because of the large number of pieces,...

The passage of the Land Ordinance of 1785 created the rectangular survey system for the mapping and subsequent sale of the western public lands of the United States. In 1803, the first survey of the lands, which would later become the state of Illinois, began. After moving northwards from southern Illinois in 1806, the federal surveyors finished surveying the last townships in 1843, but for four...

The US Library of Congress American Memory site contains the premiere release (about 8,000 pages) of the complete George Washington Papers (176,000 pages), which will consist of eight parts published successively through 1999. Documents include correspondence, letterbooks, diaries, journals, books, military records, and reports and notes Washington accumulated between 1741 and 1799. The materials...

Few people have impacted the history of the United States as significantly as Thomas Jefferson. As this Library of Congress exhibition notes, the third president was a "founding father, farmer, architect, inventor, slaveholder, book collector, scholar, [and] diplomat." Explore Jefferson through his papers, letters, and book collections on this well-executed web site. After perusing the home page,...