Legal Research

Documents of the Founding Fathers to go online

By Pamela

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grantmaking arm of the National Archives, has announced a cooperative agreement with The University of Virginia (UVA) Press to make freely available online the historical documents of the Founders of the United States of America.

The NHPRC and UVA Press will create a new website which provides access to the fully annotated published papers of key figures in the nation’s Founding era. The project is designed to include the papers of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin.

Through this web resource, users will be able to read, browse, and search tens of thousands of documents from the Founding Era.  A prototype website including the contents of 154 volumes drawn from print editions of the papers of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison will be prepared by October 2011.   The fully public version will be launched by June 2012 and will also include the 27 volumes of the Papers of Alexander Hamilton.   By June 2013, the Founders Online expects to add the 39 published volumes of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin.  The new resource will include the complete contents of 242 printed volumes, including all of the existing document transcriptions and the editors’ explanatory notes.

[PRM]

Full post as published by Cocky Law Blawg on October 14, 2010 (boomark / email).