Access to print, pictorial and audio-visual collections and other digital services.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES CATALOG

Explore our nation's history through our documents, photos and records.

Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop critical thinking skills by exploring topics in history, literature, and culture through primary sources. Drawing online materials from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States, the sets use letters, photographs, posters, oral histories, video clips, sheet music, and more. Each set includes a topic overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee. Read about our education projects and contact us with feedback at education@dp.la.

Library of Congress

Primary sources provide a window into the past—unfiltered access to the record of artistic, social, scientific and political thought and achievement during the specific period under study, produced by people who lived during that period.

Bringing young people into close contact with these unique, often profoundly personal, documents and objects can give them a very real sense of what it was like to be alive during a long-past era.

Teacher Resources

Discover quick and easy ways to begin using primary sources in your classroom, with teachers' guides, information on citing sources and copyright, and the Library's primary source analysis tool.

National Archives

Documents--diaries, letters, drawings, and memoirs--created by those who participated in or witnessed the events of the past tell us something that even the best-written article or book cannot convey. The use of primary sources exposes students to important historical concepts. First, students become aware that all written history reflects an author's interpretation of past events. Therefore, as students read a historical account, they can recognize its subjective nature. Second, through primary sources the students directly touch the lives of people in the past. Further, as students use primary sources, they develop important analytical skills.

DocsTeach

Turn your students into historians with primary-source based activities that develop historical thinking skills. Activities are ready to use in your classroom. Or alter an existing activity to fit your unique needs. Exchange primary source documents and modify activity instructions. Log in to borrow from an even larger selection from fellow educators.

Primary Sources

Primary Source LInks