Americas Archive
Archive Description
The Americas collection strives to represent the full range and complexity of the Americas history by bringing together key documents that examines political and cultural relationships from a hemispheric perspective. Its goal is to represent the full range and complexity of a multilingual “Americas” that includes Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America from the beginning of colonization to the present.
Please visit our collaborative site Our Americas Archive Partnership
The Americas Digital Archive project is overseen by Geneva Henry, Executive Director of Rice's Center for Digital Scholarship and Dr. Caroline Levander, Director of the Humanities Research Center at Rice University. Rice University's physical archival materials are housed at the Woodson Research Center, located in the Fondren Library.
Collections in this community
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Textual Documents [449]
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Translated Documents [94]
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Visual Materials [725]
Recent Submissions
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The Civil War Through Contemporary Accounts: The Diary of Alexander Hobbs
(2010)Using the wartime diary of Alexander Hobbs, this module explores how teachers and scholars can approach the Civil War on the Gulf Coast. -
Introduction to Hemispheric Studies
(2011)This module provides a brief introduction to hemispheric studies. It works through examples of how a hemispheric approach can be employed and overviews the direction of the field. Finally, this modules discusses the hemispheric approach of the Our Americas Archive Partnership and the type of documents it holds. -
Literary Skills and the Archive
(2006)This collection includes modules that provide specific ways to practice literary skills and study literary forms using OAAP documents. These modules suggest how to discuss colonialism, gender, race, travel, poetry, autobiography, and non-fiction documents through close-reading. In addition, each module considers how these skills can help students ... -
Discovering U.S. Empire through the Archive
(2010)This module explores 19th-century relations between the U.S. and Mexico as well as the U.S. and Native Americans through the travel journal of Mirabeau B. Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas. -
Rare Letters of Jefferson Davis
(2009)This module explores an archived group of rare and unpublished letters written by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. -
Pan-Americanism in the Wake of Latin American Independence
(2009)This module uses a letter by Anastasio Bustamante, third President of Mexico, in order to comment on the ideology of pan-Americanism in the 19th century. -
The Mexican-American Borderlands Culture and History
(2009)This course includes a variety of modules concerning Texas, the Mexican-American borderlands, border histories, migration, Spanish colonialism, and health care. AP history teachers might use this course or individual modules within it to help teach sections on transatlantic encounters and colonial beginnings, colonial North America, territorial ... -
Hispanic Culture for the Spanish Classroom
(2011)This collection includes cultural-themed modules (in English and in Spanish) aimed at the introductory Spanish language classroom (high school and college). It includes reading passages and lesson plans that emphasize Hispanic culture through authentic material (such as photographs, images, letters, documents, etc.), available for free on the Our ... -
Spanish Literature/Literatura en español
(2011)This collection includes modules (in English and in Spanish) aimed at the AP or introductory college Spanish language classroom. It includes lesson plans, reading passages, and resources such as glossaries, that can be used for classroom activities, homework, and special projects to emphasize culture and authentic material. -
Print Culture in the Americas
(2011)This course includes modules discussing the print materials surrounding slavery and abolition, the plagiarism of historical materials, historical advertisements, and the circulation of texts throughout the Americas. It could also supplement sections such as the U.S. Civil War, and the emergence of the U.S. as a world power AP history and literature ... -
Spanish Language/Clase de lenguaje
(2011)This collection includes modules (in English and in Spanish) aimed at the AP or introductory college Spanish language classroom. It includes lesson plans, reading passages, and resources that emphasize the Spanish language using culture and historical material. -
Glossaries and vocabulary lists
(2011)This collection contains resources such as glossaries and vocabulary lists that were created for use with historical documents found in the free Our Americas Archive Partnership site. They were written for high school AP Spanish students and college students. -
Travel Literature and History
(2011)This collection provides modules on different forms of travel. It includes lessons on transported labor and slavery, travel journals, travel fiction, migration, and U.S. imperialism in hemispheric and transatlantic travel. Literature teachers could use this course or individual modules within it to help teach literary genres such as the slave narrative ... -
Using Historical Documents
(2011)This course provides useful ways and materials from which to discuss historical records, documentation, print culture, and rare materials for AP history teachers. Teachers and students could use these modules to discuss and learn about different forms of historical research and historiography. -
Revolution and War in the Hemisphere
(2011)This course offers AP history and English teachers teaching material for studying different wars throughout the Western Hemisphere. The collection is organized into three major sub-folders: Caribbean and Latin American independence movements, the U.S. Civil War, and the U.S.-Mexican War. Each sub-folder has two or more modules or pedagogical essays ... -
Slavery in the Americas
(2011)This course includes modules that AP history and literature teachers can use to introduce students to slavery within a broader hemispheric context. It includes discussions of slave sales, labor, gender, rebellion, and revolution. This course or the individual modules within it could help supplement sections of American studies courses concerned with ... -
Catholic Missions and Spanish Colonialism
(2011)This course offers a series of modules through which AP history teachers can introduce histories of Spanish colonialism and Catholic missionary work in the Americas. Topics include colonial economies, Mexican-American border history, and race relations. Major historical themes from AP history curriculum include American diversity, American identity, ... -
Yellow Fever: Medicine in the Western Hemisphere
(2011)This course provides a series of modules that discuss yellow fever, disease, the building of the Panama Canal, and health care in the U.S. South and throughout the hemisphere. History teachers could include this course or individual modules from this selection in sections covering the development of the West in the late nineteenth century, urban ... -
The Atlantic Ocean and Hemispheric Histories
(2011)This course includes a variety of modules concerning the Atlantic World and Atlantic economies. It allows students to study how the networks of the Atlantic intersected and overlapped with those of the Western Hemisphere. Topics include colonial economies, agriculture, slavery, gender, and anti-slavery print culture. This course also covers majors ... -
Our Americas Archive Partnership
(2011)A collection of pedagogical and research modules designed in conjunction with the Our Americas Archive Partnership, a collection of primary documents that suggest a hemispheric, rather than a strictly national, approach to American cultural studies.