Washington, DC… The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant making arm
of the National Archives, has signed a cooperative agreement with the
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, affiliated with the University
of Virginia, to provide pre-publication access to 68,000 historical
papers of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, and George Washington that have not yet been published in
authoritative documentary editions. The cooperative agreement provides up to $2.5 million for the project.
The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and its Documents Compass program are carrying out this three-year project. Documents
Compass, a program specializing in documentary editing in the
electronic age, will update and improve existing transcriptions of the
papers of the Founders of the Nation and make them available online
through a new website. This work
builds on its successful 2009 pilot project, funded through an NHPRC
grant, which put online 5,000 unpublished documents from the Papers of James Madison and the Papers of John Adams.
This
project expedites availability of the unpublished papers, giving
scholars and the general public access to these primary source materials
before they appear in the official print editions produced by six
separate documentary editing projects. As
new authoritative volumes are published in future, the final
transcriptions with explanatory notes will replace the pre-publication
transcriptions. “This is a remarkable opportunity to make available to
the public these very important historical documents in a timely and
easily accessible manner,” says Rob Vaughan, president of the Virginia
Foundation for the Humanities.
Providing
access to the unpublished transcriptions is the second stage of the
Founders Online Initiative undertaken by NHPRC in 2010. The
first stage, currently underway, is being carried out by the University
of Virginia Press to provide free online access to over 120,000
historical documents included in the published documentary editions for
these key figures of the U.S. founding era. Users
will be able to access both the published, annotated documents and the
unpublished transcriptions through the Founders Online website.
David
S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, notes, “These documentary
editions provide a treasure trove of information about the founding of
our nation. The historical documents contain fascinating details about
the thoughts, deeds, and lives of these seminal figures. This agreement
ensures that we leverage the latest technology and processes to ensure
that all Americans can access and use these papers.”
