OUR STORY
The mission of the Ronald D. Ray Library of American History is to preserve the record of America’s founding principles as written and spoken by the men who secured the blessings of liberty for our nation; provide an archive and a fortress for truth within which educators, students, leaders and citizens may read, study and learn how to reinforce the foundation of liberty for generations to come; protect this treasure from censorship, removal or alteration of any kind and by these means; to project a beacon of confidence into the future.
Mission Statement, Ronald D. Ray Library of American History
The Ronald D. Ray Library of American History is a project of First Principles, Inc. (FPP), a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1993 to provide historical instruction and information about the truth and current significance of the first principles of America. The library is rooted in the vision of Colonel Ronald D. Ray, a decorated Marine, lawyer, and historian who believed that preserving our nation’s history is the citizen’s duty. Colonel Ray amassed over 8,000 volumes of books focused on America’s founding and its guiding principles with topics ranging from government, finance, and American history from the Revolutionary War to the Cold War, as well as an archive of 40,000+ documents written, published, and curated by Colonel Ray during his career as a lawyer and advocate in the public arena.
The Ronald D. Ray Library of American History aims to make history accessible, accurate, and engaging for everyone, from scholars to casual readers, but today includes marrying history with emerging technologies. Additionally, the library hopes to serve as an example for other groups and individuals seeking to preserve and digitize their own print collections
Why a Library Now? America is at a pivotal time as the very legitimacy of the nation is questioned in all of America’s institutions. Books are being censored and removed from library circulation as free speech is stifled by a growing “cancel culture.” This trend is concerning as dependence upon Big Tech grows. Once a wide breadth of information could be accessed, but today online searches yield little but a narrow narrative.
Educating our Nation’s Future Leaders. Subjects vital to citizenship are history, geography and civics which were eliminated in 1967 by the NEA (National Educational Association). Two generations later, “we the people,” have abandoned absolutes and traditional American ideals.
Institutions lean toward the collective and recent generations cling to their subjective “truth” largely unprepared to guide the Republic through the country’s elected officials. The shift in educational emphasis can also be seen in investment in Education: For every $54 the US government spends per school child on STEM, (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), $.05 cents is spent on civics. Are these generations so easily parted from the lessons of the past because so little effort was made to teach it?
“No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history.”
– ACCLAIMED HISTORIANS ARIEL AND WILL DURRANT, THE LESSONS OF HISTORY
