Modern History Sourcebook

This site, housed by Fordham University, holds numerous primary documents concerning the onslaught of war, war in Europe and Asia, as well as the aftermath of World War II. Then, check out the section on post-war political thought.

The Enola Gay Controversy 

The refurbished Enola Gay, the B-29 Bomber that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th, 1945, fell at the center of a debate regarding historical memory. Administered by Lehigh University, this site contains material related to the controversy surrounding the proposed 1995 exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum entitled “The Crossroads: The End of WWII, the Atomic Bomb, and the Cold War.”

Student Voices from World War II and the McCarthy Era

This oral history website offers a case study of the impact of World War II and the domestic Cold War on student life at an urban public college campus. It is based on the narratives of Brooklyn College students that participated in Brooklyn College's World War II Farm Labor Project and the experiences of students involved in the student newspaper during the McCarthy Era. The site is maintained by The Center for Media and Learning/American Social History Project at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Rutgers Oral History Project of World War II

The Rutgers Oral History Archives of WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, directed by Sandra Stewart Holyoak, details the personal experiences of men and women who served both overseas and at home during these conflicts.

WWII Letters To and From the Home Front

This site contains the personal correspondence of Private Arthur Pranger of the 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion during WWII. It was created by the Pranger family.

What Did You Do in the War, Grandma?

Maintained by Brown University's Scholarly Technology Group, this site provides an oral history of Rhode Island women during World War II compiled by students in the Honors English Program at South Kingstown High School.

Diplomatic & Political Documents of WWII

Compiled and formatted by Patrick Clancey of the HyperWar Foundation, this site contains full-text diplomatic and political documents arranged chronologically, including Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1943).

Historic Documents of WWII

Search this digital library of government publications from the WWII era, administered by the Central University Libraries of Southern Methodist University.

Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives

Administered by the University of California Libraries, an initiative of the California Digital Library, this site documents the relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII, and contains over 10,000 images (including photographic prints, negatives, drawings, and watercolor paintings) and over 20,000 pages of electronic transcriptions of texts (including personal narratives, notes, and letters; government documents, publications, circulars, and reports).

Smithsonian Institution: Japanese Americans and the Constitution

This searchable database holds nearly 800 artifacts pertaining to the Japanese-American experience from the More Perfect Union collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The collection includes archival photography, publications, original manuscripts, artworks, and handmade objects.

Power of Persuasion - Poster Art from WWII

A project of the National Archives, this site links to an online exhibit entitled Powers of Persuasion, containing American propaganda posters from WWII.

Smithsonian Institution: Posters of the American Home Front

This site contains images from an exhibition of American WWII era posters, Produce for Victory: Posters of the American Home Front (1941-45), organized by the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES).

World War II Poster Collection

This digital collection has over 300 posters issued by U.S. federal agencies from 1941-1945 from the Government Publications Department at Northwestern University Library.

“Suffering under a Great Injustice”: Ansel Adams' Photographs of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar

This website contains images from the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Photographs taken in 1943 by Ansel Adams (1902-1984), America's best-known photographer, document the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California. The collection presents side-by-side digital scans of both Adams' 242 original negatives and his 209 photographic prints, allowing viewers to see his darkroom technique.