It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future. This web site is designed for students, teachers, and librarians who would like primary source materials relating to the history of the United States. It is by no means an exhaustive collection but particular effort has been taken to find online resources that are interesting and valuable. Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to the truth of what actually happened during an historical event or time period.
Primary sources are the evidence left behind by participants or observers.
Memoirs and autobiographies. These are generally less reliable since they are usually written long after events occurred and may be distorted by bias, dimming memory or the revised perspective that may come with hindsight. On the other hand, they are sometimes the only source for certain information. While these are sometimes accounts by participants, in most cases they are written by journalists or other observers. The important thing is to distinguish between material written at the time of an event as a kind of report, and material written much later, as historical analysis.