Welcome to the American Primary Sources Challenge

The goal of this challenge is to get us all a little more educated in American history by reading primary sources. The rules:

1. The challenge will run from July 4, 2010 to July 2, 2011.

2. Participants may join in at any time. Comment on this post to join.

3. Each participant will read a primary source document weekly (if it's really long, feel free to work in weekly chapters or segments). The weeks will start on Sundays.

4. If you're not American but want to participate, read your country's historical documents!

5. I'll put up a weekly post telling what I've read. You can leave a comment telling about what you read. I'd love to have discussions.


American history has always been one of my worst subjects. I hardly studied it in school, and didn't read much after that. I always mean to read the Federalist papers or Lincoln's speeches, it just never happens. But if I have a challenge to live up to, I think I'll get much closer to learning something about my country--so here we are.

We are not going to be reading history books here, though. We are going to read primary sources--texts produced in the time we are studying. (If you are studying Eleanor Roosevelt, a letter from her is a primary source; a biography of her life is a secondary source.) You may read diaries, news accounts, letters, oral narratives, poems, sermons, essays, speeches, folksongs, almost anything. And you may study anyone or any time period in American history. I plan to try to move fairly chronologically, but it won't be all that rigid.

On the side menu, you will find a few links to massive collections of every sort of American historical texts you could desire. Between those and your friendly neighborhood public library, I think we can all educate ourselves for nothing. Join me!

I'm still getting up and running, so the look of this place will improve considerably over the next week or so. I'll have a button to put up too. Thanks for your patience.