And for many years historians, working with the benefit of hindsight, did little better.
Today, the Centre is a rare example of historians working in medical or public health settings.
The best way to prepare for this is to work through the same processes as historians working with a wide range of documents.
Pitt suspected the historian had worked for one of the government's many intelligence agencies at some time in the past.
He envisions local historians working quite a bit with schools, developing curricula specific to each town.
Some modern historians working from primary sources have discounted various myths about him.
Numerous historians and archaeologists have worked on the site since, including some of Spain's foremost.
Now, thanks to digital print-on-demand technology, historians can work like journalists.
There is hardly a historian working on Mormon studies, including this one, who doesn't owe him a great debt.
As Swade noted, historians always work with the 'residue of the past'.