I am working on a list of digital resources for historians. At this point both the list and the categories are fluid, but I wanted something up to date that would also include AT tools. If you can think of others, let me know. It goes without saying that listing things does not constitute endorsing fully the content or quality (let me know if you see things to remove as well).
List of Digital Tools for Historians
Research and Analysis Tools
- Google Books Ngram Viewer – https://books.google.com/ngrams
Tracks usage of specific phrases or terms across digitized books over centuries, identifying shifts in language and culture. - JSTOR – https://www.jstor.org/
Digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. - Semantic Scholar – https://www.semanticscholar.org/
Utilizes AI to help find and understand scholarly research papers, including those in historical fields. - Connected Papers – https://www.connectedpapers.com/
Creates visual graphs of related academic papers to identify important works in historical research. - ResearchRabbit – https://www.researchrabbit.ai/
Assists with literature reviews by discovering related papers and tracking new publications in historical research. - Voyant Tools – https://voyant-tools.org/
Enables text analysis and content visualization of large bodies of historical texts. - Gephi – https://gephi.org/
Offers powerful network analysis and visualization capabilities for exploring relationships in historical data. - Transkribus – https://readcoop.eu/transkribus/
Offers AI-powered handwriting recognition for digitizing historical documents.
AI Assistants and Analysis Tools
- ChatGPT – https://chat.openai.com/
Assists with writing, historical analysis, and research help through AI-powered conversations. - Claude – https://www.anthropic.com or https://claude.ai
An AI assistant capable of engaging in historical discussions, analyzing texts, and providing research support across various historical topics. - Venice.ai – https://www.venice.ai
An AI platform that can assist with historical research, data analysis, and visualization of historical information. - Perplexity AI – https://www.perplexity.ai/
Provides research assistance with cited answers to historical queries. - Elicit – https://elicit.org/
AI research assistant that summarizes papers and generates research questions for historical topics. - Explainpaper – https://www.explainpaper.com/
Offers AI-powered explanations of complex sections in academic papers and historical documents. - Scholarcy – https://www.scholarcy.com/
Automatically summarizes research papers and generates flashcards from historical texts.
Writing and Language Tools
- Grammarly – https://www.grammarly.com/
AI-powered writing assistant that checks grammar, style, and tone. - Writefull – https://writefull.com/
Offers AI-powered language suggestions tailored for academic writing in history. - QuillBot – https://quillbot.com/
Helps paraphrase, summarize, and rewrite complex historical texts for clarity. - DeepL Translator – https://www.deepl.com/translator
Provides highly accurate translations for working with non-English historical sources. - Recite – https://reciteworks.com/
Automates the process of generating properly formatted citations in various academic styles.
Data Management and Organization
- Zotero – https://www.zotero.org/
Manages citations, organizes research sources, and generates bibliographies for historical research. - Mendeley – https://www.mendeley.com/
Reference manager and academic social network that can help organize research papers and collaborate with other researchers. - Tropy – https://tropy.org/
Helps organize and annotate photos of archival sources and manuscripts for easy reference. - Notion AI – https://www.notion.so/product/ai
Assists with organizing notes, generating content, and summarizing information for historical research.
Visual and Creative Tools
- TimelineJS – https://timeline.knightlab.com/
Creates visually rich, interactive timelines to present historical events and narratives. - StoryMap JS – https://storymap.knightlab.com/
Helps create interactive maps that tell stories of historical events, places, and journeys. - Canva – https://www.canva.com/
Offers templates and design tools for creating visual content for historical presentations. - DALL·E – https://openai.com/dall-e-2
Generates images for historical reconstructions or visual representations of historical events. - Google Lens – https://lens.google.com/
Helps identify objects, buildings, or artworks in historical images.
Digital Archives and Libraries
- Internet Archive – https://archive.org/
Provides a vast digital library of websites, books, audio, video, and other digital formats, including many historical materials. - Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) – https://dp.la/
Offers access to a vast collection of digitized archives, newspapers, and historical texts. - Europeana – https://www.europeana.eu
A massive digital library that provides access to millions of books, paintings, films, and archival records from European cultural institutions. - Project Gutenberg – https://www.gutenberg.org/
Provides free access to a vast library of public domain books, useful for historical research. - Chronicling America – https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Offers a searchable database of historic American newspapers from 1777-1963, maintained by the Library of Congress. - The British Library’s Endangered Archives Programme (EAP) – https://eap.bl.uk
Digitizes rare and endangered historical materials from around the world, making them accessible to historians and preserving them for future research. - Digital Transgender Archive – https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/
Aims to increase the accessibility of transgender history by providing an online hub for digitized historical materials, born-digital materials, and information on archival holdings throughout the world. - ONE Archives at USC Libraries – https://one.usc.edu/
The largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world. Their digital collections include photographs, artwork, audio recordings, and other historical artifacts related to LGBTQ history. - Archive of Our Own (AO3) – https://archiveofourown.org/
A fan-created, fan-run, nonprofit archive for transformative fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fan videos, and podfic. While not a traditional historical archive, it’s a valuable resource for studying contemporary digital culture and fan communities. - American Voices – https://www.historicalvoices.org/amvoices/index.php
A digital archive of oral history recordings, providing access to a wide range of American voices and experiences from various historical periods and contexts. - African Activist Archive – https://africanactivist.msu.edu/
A digital archive that preserves and makes accessible records of activism in the United States to support African struggles against colonialism, apartheid, and social injustice from the 1950s through the 1990s. - MSU Vietnam Group Archive – https://vietnamproject.archives.msu.edu/
A digital collection of materials related to Michigan State University’s involvement in Vietnam from 1955-1962, including documents, photographs, and oral histories.
Digital History Projects and Databases
- The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database – https://www.slavevoyages.org
Offers comprehensive records of nearly 36,000 transatlantic slave voyages, including data on the ships, captains, and enslaved individuals transported across the Atlantic. - Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America – https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining
Explores the practice of redlining in the United States by mapping historic federal housing maps, shedding light on racial segregation and its long-term impact on American cities. - Old Bailey Online – https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
An archive of London’s criminal trials from 1674 to 1913, this project allows historians to explore court proceedings and gain insight into crime and society in historical London. - The Valley of the Shadow – http://valley.lib.virginia.edu
This pioneering project compares two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, during the Civil War through letters, diaries, newspapers, and government records. - Digital Harlem – https://digitalharlem.org
This project visualizes life in Harlem during the 1920s using historical maps, legal records, and census data to offer insights into this key era of African American history. - The 1947 Partition Archive – https://www.1947partitionarchive.org
Collects and digitizes personal oral histories from people affected by the Partition of India in 1947, giving voice to millions of refugees and their experiences. - Visualizing Emancipation – http://dsl.richmond.edu/emancipation
A dynamic map that visualizes the spread of emancipation during the American Civil War, documenting when and where enslaved people gained freedom and connecting this data to broader events. - The Civil Rights Digital Library – http://crdl.usg.edu
A comprehensive digital library that brings together historical news footage, photographs, and documents related to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, providing invaluable resources for research and education. - Enslaved.org – https://enslaved.org/
A collaborative database that brings together diverse historical data on enslaved people, allowing for the exploration of individuals’ lives and the larger phenomenon of slavery. - What America Ate – http://whatamericaate.org/
A digital archive of culinary sources from the Great Depression, including recipes, photographs, and government documents, offering insights into American food culture and economic history. - The Republic of Letters (Mapping the Republic of Letters) – https://republicofletters.stanford.edu
Maps the intellectual networks of Enlightenment thinkers, visualizing the correspondence between key figures such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and others, and illustrating the global exchange of ideas. - Overcoming Apartheid – http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/
A comprehensive multimedia resource on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, featuring interviews, historical documents, and educational materials. - Six Degrees of Francis Bacon – http://www.sixdegreesoffrancisbacon.com
Uses social network analysis to map the relationships among 17th-century figures connected to Francis Bacon, visualizing the intellectual and social networks of early modern England. - The Quilt Index – https://quiltindex.org/
A digital repository of thousands of quilt images, stories, and documentation, providing a rich resource for studying material culture, social history, and artistic traditions across time and regions. - Colored Conventions Project – https://coloredconventions.org/
Brings to life the long-hidden history of 19th-century African American organizing through the digitization and analysis of minutes, proceedings, and other documents from the Colored Conventions movement.
Digital Exhibit and Collection Tools
- Omeka – https://omeka.org/
An open-source web publishing platform for sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits. - History Engine 3.0 – https://historyengine.richmond.edu/
A collaborative database of historical “episodes” contributed by students and educators, providing a platform for exploring and sharing micro-histories.
Educational Resources and Digital Textbooks
- The American Yawp – http://www.americanyawp.com
A free and open-access U.S. history textbook collaboratively created by historians, providing a comprehensive and well-curated online resource for understanding American history. - World History Commons – https://worldhistorycommons.org
A portal for primary sources, lesson plans, and essays focused on world history, connecting educators and students with resources that explore global historical themes. - The Oregon Encyclopedia – https://oregonencyclopedia.org/
A comprehensive digital resource on Oregon history and culture, featuring authoritative entries written by regional experts, regularly updated with new content. - Digital History – https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu
Provides a wide range of educational resources, including historical primary sources, multimedia exhibitions, timelines, and teaching materials for students and educators.
Specialized Digital History Resources
- The Shelley-Godwin Archive – http://shelleygodwinarchive.org
Digitizes the manuscripts of the famed Romantic writers Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Godwin, allowing scholars to explore their original writings and annotations. - The Women Writers Project – https://www.wwp.northeastern.edu
A long-running project that digitizes and provides access to the works of early women writers, offering crucial resources for scholars studying women’s literary history. - Sephardic Studies Initiative – https://sephardic.uw.edu/
Based at the University of Washington, this project aims to preserve the legacy of Sephardic Jewish culture and the Ladino language, digitizing and making accessible artifacts and documents related to Sephardic heritage. - Picturing Black History – https://picturingblackhistory.org/
A collaboration between Ohio State University and Getty Images, uncovering untold stories and rarely seen images of Black history, providing new context around culturally significant historical moments.
Immersive Historical Experiences
- Virtual Paul’s Cross Project – https://vpcp.chass.ncsu.edu
Reconstructs Paul’s Cross, an outdoor preaching location in early modern London, using 3D models and soundscapes, providing insight into the historical experience of public speech and debate. - Histories of the National Mall – https://mallhistory.org
Explores the history of Washington D.C.’s National Mall, using interactive maps and timelines to uncover the people, events, and transformations that have shaped the space over time. - People Not Property – https://peoplenotproperty.hudsonvalley.org/
An award-winning online documentary revealing the history of Northern slavery through stories of enslaved individuals at Philipsburg Manor and beyond. - Kofi’s Fire – https://kofisfire.org/
An interactive graphic novel that tells the fictionalized story of Kofi, an enslaved man accused of involvement in the 1741 “New York Conspiracy”, bringing history to life through vivid storytelling and artwork.
Productivity and Study Tools
- Reclaim AI – https://reclaim.ai/
Helps plan study schedules and manage time effectively for historical research projects. - Caktus.ai – https://www.caktus.ai/
Assists with various academic tasks, including solving complex problems in historical research. - Quizgecko AI – https://quizgecko.com/
Creates and shares quizzes, useful for studying historical topics. - Upword – https://www.upword.ai/
Assists with studying and learning by summarizing historical texts. - TextToHandwriting – https://texttohandwriting.com/
Converts typed text into handwritten notes, useful for creating study materials on historical topics. - Podcastle AI – https://podcastle.ai/
Converts readings into audio, making it easier to study historical texts on the go. - Mymap AI – https://mymap.ai/
Generates mind maps to help organize thoughts and study materials for historical topics.
Digital History Centers
- Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM) – https://rrchnm.org
Located at George Mason University, USA. A leader in digital history, developing digital tools, websites, and educational resources that have revolutionized historical research and teaching. - Center for Digital Research in the Humanities (CDRH) – https://cdrh.unl.edu
Located at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. Supports interdisciplinary digital projects, with a strong emphasis on digital history and archiving, known for key projects such as “The Walt Whitman Archive” and “Civil War Washington.” - Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) – https://cesta.stanford.edu
Located at Stanford University, USA. Brings together humanities, history, and digital tools to create innovative spatial and textual analyses, supporting projects like “Mapping the Republic of Letters.” - Harvard University’s Digital Scholarship Support Group (DSSG) – https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/dssg
Located at Harvard University, USA. Provides robust support for digital scholarship, including digital history projects, data visualization, and digital preservation. - The University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) – https://dsl.richmond.edu
Located at the University of Richmond, USA. Specializes in creating interactive visualizations and maps for history, such as “Mapping Inequality” and “Visualizing Emancipation.” - MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences – https://matrix.msu.edu
Located at Michigan State University, USA. Known for its work in creating digital archives, historical websites, and tools for digital preservation and public history, such as the “Slave Biographies” project. - Yale University’s Digital Humanities Lab – https://dhlab.yale.edu
Located at Yale University, USA. Supports digital history projects by providing resources for text mining, data visualization, and archival digitization for faculty and students. - Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton University (CDH) – https://cdh.princeton.edu
Located at Princeton University, USA. Promotes interdisciplinary research in digital humanities and history, focusing on digital archives and textual analysis tools. - University of Virginia’s Scholars’ Lab – https://scholarslab.lib.virginia.edu
Located at the University of Virginia, USA. Offers expertise in spatial analysis, 3D modeling, and digital humanities projects, with a particular emphasis on digital history. - King’s Digital Lab – https://kdl.kcl.ac.uk
Located at King’s College London, UK. Known for developing advanced digital history tools and projects in text mining, data analysis, and historical research. - Centre for Digital Humanities at University College London (UCL) – https://www.ucl.ac.uk/digital-humanities
Located at University College London, UK. Brings together historians, linguists, and computer scientists to develop new digital tools and methods for historical research. - NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks – https://web.northeastern.edu/nulab
Located at Northeastern University, USA. Focuses on interdisciplinary research in digital history, network analysis, and data visualization.