American History 1877

visit the National Archives DOCSTeach site https://www.docsteach.org/. Historians typically use two types of materials, secondary source, and primary source documents. Secondary sources are typically books and articles written on a particular historical event, well after the fact. Primary source documents are usually generated by first-hand participants. Good historians rely heavily on original materials created at the time of the event. For this reason, historians spend a good deal of time at the archives. There are many types of archives, but by far, the largest in the United States, is the National Archives in Washington, D.C.