Primary Documents and Historical Archives

Primary documents offer students a rich resource for engaging directly with foundational moments in American politics. The links below connect to primary documents from America's founding. The archives featured below also link to associated classroom materials.

Return to the Engaging America's 250 resource collection page

National Archives

America’s Founding Documents
- These three documents, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom, have secured the rights of the American people for more than two and a quarter centuries and are considered instrumental to the founding and philosophy of the United States.
Founders Online
- George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams (and family), Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison. Over 184,000 searchable documents, fully annotated, from the authoritative Founding Fathers Papers projects.

American Revolution Institute

Voices of the Revolution – American Revolution Institute
- The exhibition Voices of Revolution and a companion digital interactive draw from the collections of the American Revolution Institute as well as other museums and private collectors to feature the complex and compelling stories of numerous individuals who participated in the Revolutionary War in different ways and on different sides of the conflict, as a soldier, sailor, laborer or observer. Together, these stories offer a broader picture of the kinds of people—American, French, British, Loyalist, Female, Black, Native American, German, Spanish—who took part in the American Revolution and underscore the scale and importance of this event at the heart of our national identity.
Eight Lesson Plans – American Revolution Institute
- Our lesson plans provide teachers with a wide selection of tools and approaches to teaching their students about the major achievements of the American Revolution—our independence, our republic, our national identity, and our ideals of liberty, equality, natural and civil rights, and responsible citizenship. These lesson plans use images, primary source documents, and period artifacts to help students understand the Revolution—the defining event in American history. They introduce students to major historical interpretations of the Revolution and teach them to read critically. They provide strategies for teaching students to research and interpret Revolutionary events and people, and the introduce students to the global dimension of the American Revolution.

Council for Foreign Relations

Primary Documents that Shaped U.S. Foreign Policy During the Early Republic
- This collection of resources facilitates critical analysis of a pivotal moment in U.S. foreign policy history. It contains a brief historical overview, a curated set of primary source documents, a short reading on the aftermath and legacy of the event, and a classroom discussion activity in which learners can synthesize their knowledge.

Return to the Engaging America's 250 resource collection page

National Archives

American Revolution Institute

Council for Foreign Relations

Do you have an archive of primary sources on America's founding? Please email educate@apsanet.org