Historians work with two types of sources: primary and secondary. Primary sources are letters, diaries, films, photographs, newspaper articles, and any other artifacts that were produced by people living through the events of a historical period. Historians study and draw on these sources in order to recreate the past for the current generation. These recreations are called secondary sources. Secondary sources are books, articles, and websites that historians and other authors write about the past—A People and a Nation is an example of a secondary source.
four time periods in United States history:
• English Colonization and the Road to Revolution
• The Early Republic and the American Civil War
• Reconstruction and the Age of American Imperialism
• The Making of Modern America
