History Matters arose from the CD-Rom Who Built America and led to the development of Teaching History, World History Matters, Children in world history, the Making of 1989, and Teaching American History. The importance of teacher training to make more substantial use of these source materials is a sometimes overlooked part of the project. 

In 1998 when it was invisioned, access to primary sources alone was very significant.  The focus of putting evidence of the life of ordinary people was a outgrowth of ASHP and Roy's interests and multi-media was particularly suited to the focus on history form the ground up and promoting critical historical thinking.