Skip to Main Content

Open Educational Resources

A guide to textbooks, course materials and multimedia which are free or or low cost for educational use. These resources were created with the intention of being widely used and are legal to use in courses with proper citation.

Open History Textbooks

The American Yawp

The American Yawp offers a free and online, collaboratively built, open American history textbook designed for college-level history courses. Unchecked by profit motives or business models, and free from for-profit educational organizations,The American Yawp is by scholars, for scholars. All contributors—experienced college-level instructors—volunteer their expertise to help democratize the American past for twenty-first century classrooms.

The American Yawp is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States of America to 1877  -University of North Georgia

Prior to its publication, History in the Making underwent a rigorous double blind peer review, a process that involved over thirty scholars who reviewed the materially carefully, objectively, and candidly in order to ensure not only its scholarly integrity but also its high standard of quality.

This book provides a strong emphasis on critical thinking about US History by providing several key features in each chapter. Learning Objectives at the beginning of each chapter help students to understand what they will learn in each chapter.  Before You Move On sections at the end of each main section are designed to encourage students to reflect on important concepts and test their knowledge as they read. In addition, each chapter includes Critical Thinking Exercises that ask the student to deeply explore chapter content, Key Terms, and a Chronology of events.  -University of North Georgia

Authors:

This work is licensed by The University System of Georgia under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg serves digital versions of a variety of books including fiction, non-fiction, classic, law, and technical.

The Gutenberg Project serves only books whose copyright has expired or has been released for unlimited non-commercial use. 

US History/English colonies  -Wikibooks

Wikibooks is for textbooks, annotated texts, instructional guides, and manuals. These materials can be used in a traditional classroom, an accredited or respected institution, a home-school environment, or for self-learning. 

Wikibooks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. 

American History

This online textbook is one of a series of three.  It begins by describing Native American Society as it was directly before colinization.  This text comprehensively discusses, all topics of American history up to the turn of the twenty first century. 

Author:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

More . . .

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

American Government

Beginning with the nature of government, this text covers all of the main topics of government including federalism, congress, bureaucracy, and civil rights.  

Author:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

More . . .

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Ancient Civilizations

This online text comprehsneively addresses all major ancient civilization including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, and China.   

Author:

Carol Berkin Ph.D., History, CUNY Graduate Center

Ira Berlin, History, University of Maryland

Joseph Ellis Ph.D., History, Mt. Holyoke College

More . . .

This text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.