The Papers of George Washington
Encyclopedia
The Papers of George Washington is a project dedicated to publishing a comprehensive edition of George Washington's papers. It was founded at the University of Virginia
in 1968.
Upon his retirement from public service, George Washington
made a deliberate effort to organize and preserve his personal papers. He was aware of the effect that his life and career would have on the documents' appeal and in 1797 he considered building a library to house them. Washington died in 1799 before any such library could be constructed and bequeathed the papers to his nephew, Bushrod Washington
. He had been correct in assuming that people would take interest in his documents and in the next forty years both Chief Justice John Marshall
and future Harvard president Jared Sparks
borrowed the papers to write their respective works on the first president.
Between 1833 and 1839 Sparks published 12 volumes of The Writings of George Washington. He was aware of the magnitude of Washington's document collection and therefore made a conscious effort to include only "the most valuable parts of Washington's writings." Sparks also modified the text of many of the letters. He felt it was his duty to polish the "awkward use of words, faults of grammar, or inaccuracies of style" that appeared in the papers so as to not dull the president's legacy. In one example Sparks changed Washington's "but a flea-bite" to the more refined, "totally inadequate." In another, where Washington had written a nickname ("Old Put"), Sparks replaced it with the individual's rank and surname, "General Putnam." The result, while more aesthetically pleasing, skewed Washington's words and presented an incomplete portrait of the man behind the papers.
Sparks' influence extended not only to editing Washington's words, but to the physical papers themselves. As he had carefully selected what papers were important enough to include in his volumes and which ones weren't, Sparks would occasionally give away some of the "unimportant" documents. As a result, many hundreds, if not thousands, of Washington's papers were scattered about the country and world, settling in private hands and small libraries. With so many of Washington's papers strewn about the globe, any future projects would be incomplete unless they undertook the massive endeavor to locate these documents.
In an effort to correct Sparks' editorial changes in The Writings of George Washington, Worthington C. Ford
, the future head of the Library of Congress's manuscript division, began his own editorial project. The product was a 14-volume series published from 1889 and 1893 also entitled, The Writings of George Washington, that barely utilized more documents than Sparks had.
Between 1931 and 1944, John C. Fitzpatrick, who had retired from the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, published The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. This 39-volume set greatly eclipsed the earlier works by Sparks and Ford and was widely accepted and respected among the academic community. However, Fitzpatrick only utilized manuscripts housed in major repositories, such as the Library of Congress
and New York Public Library
, and, like the previous compilers of Washington's papers, predominantly included documents Washington had written. In leaving out letters that Washington had received, all of these works presented only one half of the story.
In 1966 the Virginia state archivist, William J. Van Schreeven, proposed that the University of Virginia
sponsor a new documentary editing project for Washington's papers. At a time when the papers of John Adams
, John Quincy Adams
, Benjamin Franklin
, Alexander Hamilton
, Thomas Jefferson
, and James Madison
were all being edited, one individual, arguably the most central figure in the formative years of the republic, was noticeably absent. The University thereby agreed to give Washington his due and in 1968, the University of Virginia and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
launched a new effort to publish the papers of George Washington. The new effort, titled the 'Papers of George Washington', named Donald Jackson, formerly of the University of Illinois Press, editor-in-chief. Though it began almost 25 years after Fitzpatrick published his final volume, this project ambitiously sought to surpass all of the previous undertakings. Unlike Fitzpatrick, Ford, and Sparks, Jackson's Papers of George Washington determined to be the most comprehensive compilation yet and include not just letters Washington wrote, but those he received. The project also sought to include all other documents attributable to Washington, including military orders, council of war minutes, intelligence reports, addresses, financial records, farm reports, and ledgers. In addition, rather than only utilize documents that resided in major repositories like the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, the new Papers of George Washington commenced a massive search to locate documents in libraries, historical societies, and public collections across the globe. The search resulted in identifying and procuring copies of 140,000 documents, making the Papers of George Washington the largest such collection ever compiled.
Between 1976 and 1979, the Papers of George Washington published The Diaries of George Washington. This six-volume set contains all of Washington's diary entries from 1748 to December 13, 1799, the day before he died. In 1981, the Papers published a one-volume daybook from the later years of Washington's presidency, titled, The Journal of the Proceedings of the President.
During this time, Donald Jackson's successor as editor-in-chief, W.W. Abbot, devised a new system through which to present Washington's papers. Abbot divided the documents into five series, with each section corresponding to a different period in Washington's life:
This system introduced a revolutionary new way to publish papers. In enabling the series to be published out of order, it allowed documents and writings from the subject's later years to be available earlier than they would have been otherwise. The success of Abbot's classification encouraged other Founding Fathers projects, such as the Thomas Jefferson Papers, to adopt their own versions of the system.
In 2004 the Papers of George Washington embarked upon a massive digitization project with Mount Vernon
and the University of Virginia Press
's digital database, Rotunda. It was the first of the major Founding Father documentary editing projects to do so. The result was the Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, an online publication of the 55 volumes that had been published up to that point. As a "living edition," the PGWDE enables the editors to correct known errors in the print volumes and compile and standardize references to people, topics, and sources that have appeared multiple times throughout the project's 40-year history. In addition, the PGWDE is updated regularly with revised and improved annotations, new documents, and the latest print volumes.
On April 29, 2005, editor-in-chief Ted Crackel, staff members Christine Patrick, Phil Chase, and John C. Pinheiro, as well as the chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole, presented President George W. Bush with what was then the latest volume of the Presidential Series. After a brief ceremony in the Oval Office
, the editors donated a full set of the Papers of George Washington to the White House.
Since its inception in 1968, the Papers of George Washington has published 63 of its projected 90 volumes and completed the Colonial, Confederation, and Retirement series. It remains on the schedule to finish the complete Papers in about 2023. Upon completion of the project, the Papers of George Washington's 140,000 document copies will move to Mount Vernon where they will constitute an important part of the collection at the new Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Together with Mount Vernon's resources, the new library will house the most comprehensive collection of copies of Washington's papers in the world.
On October 12, 2010, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the University of Virginia Press announced plans to create a new web site to provide free access to the papers of the Founding Fathers. The project, entitled The Founders Online, will launch in October 2011 and will include the 154 volumes that have been published by the current George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison documentary editing projects. By June, 2013, it will include the papers of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. The site will include all of the content from the print volumes, such as full transcriptions and annotations, and will be continuously updated to reflect new volumes and discoveries. It will allow users to read, browse, and search the voluminous texts of the Founders in one place and will serve as much of a resource for educators as it will be for scholars.
The Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia is different from the George Washington Papers American Memory
database at the Library of Congress
in two major ways. First, their goals and purposes are very different. In presenting transcriptions of documents that are heavily annotated, the Papers of George Washington seeks to serve as a vital informational resource for academic research on Washington. In contrast, American Memory's George Washington Papers displays images of documents, few transcriptions, and even fewer annotations, making it an excellent resource for accessing original manuscripts, not for thorough research. The second major difference is the size and scope of each of these collections. The American Memory collection primarily includes documents from the Library of Congress, whereas the Papers of George Washington includes copies of documents from small and large American repositories, private collectors, and international libraries.
project is twofold. The first job is to provide accurate, readable, and accessible transcriptions of historical documents. The second is to provide readers with the proper information to understand and use the text. This process is known as annotation
. Fulfilling both of these goals takes time and, as each document must be examined individually, makes the editing process a complex one.
Before any work can be done to prepare the document for publication, the manuscript must first be authenticated
. This means that the editors must verify that the signature, handwriting, date, and content fit the individual in question. They must also ensure that the paper and ink align with the standards of the day and that the document has a proven history, or provenance
. This process takes a tremendous amount of time, but is crucial in maintaining the integrity of the papers and the project.
Next, the editors must select which version of a document they want to use. For documents from the 18th century it is common to find multiple drafts or copies of letters in letter books (bound volumes in which individuals would copy out the text of letters they had sent and received). Editors prefer to utilize the document that was physically sent and not these copies, but when the official document is unavailable, they use what they have. In this case, they then have to decide which of the copies they want to utilize, for they all may differ in terms of content and date.
The next step in the editing process is transcribing the document. The style of 18th-century handwriting
makes this difficult enough, but editors also have to contend with abbreviations, spelling, capitalization, and grammar that had not yet been standardized. In addition, many individuals in this time period lacked formal education and proper training, making deciphering handwriting and sentences even more difficult. The physical conditions of the document can also be problematic to transcription. Faded ink, damage to the manuscript, and unclear photocopies make transcription a painstaking process. The editors' goal is to preserve the original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing of the manuscript, as well as the author's intentions and words. Occasionally an editor will have reason to make changes to the text and will outline those changes, as well as their reasons for doing so, in the book's introduction.
In annotating documents, the editor identifies people, places, and events that the reader probably wouldn't know, in addition to any further information that would help the reader understand the document. This process requires the editor to conduct thorough research and write short, concise summaries on specific points. Similarly, annotations contain information about where the original document is located, what textual problems the editor may have found in the manuscript, and what alternative versions of the document may exist. Annotations can also include other substantive information mentioned within the document, such as attached maps or illustrations, or relevant letters and enclosures. According to Philander D. Chase, former editor-in-chief of the Papers of George Washington, "the work of properly annotating and indexing each document is one of the most time-consuming tasks the editors perform."
, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Packard Humanities Institute
, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
, and the University of Virginia
.
On March 2003, Papers of George Washington Assistant Editor Dr. Christine Sternberg Patrick received the Thomas Jefferson Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government
for editing Presidential Series volume 11 (August 1792 - January 1793). Patrick was lauded for "displaying all the qualities as a historian and an editor that make this documentary edition outstanding."
On November 10, 2005 the Papers of George Washington received the National Humanities Medal
from President George W. Bush in the Oval Office of the White House. To this day it remains the only documentary editing project to receive this honor.
In 2007, the American Library Association
's Choice magazine named the Papers of George Washington Digital Edition an Outstanding Academic Title. Choice bestows this honor upon books and electronic sites and resources that provide valuable resources to undergraduates and libraries.
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
in 1968.
Editors-in-Chief
- Donald Jackson, 1969–1976
- W.W. Abbot, 1976–1992
- Dorothy Twohig, 1992–1998
- Philander D. Chase, 1999–2004
- Theodore J. Crackel, 2004–2010
- Edward G. LengelEdward G. LengelEdward G. Lengel is an American military historian and professor at the University of Virginia.Lengel is the editor-in-chief of The Papers of George Washington documentary editing project in Charlottesville, Virginia...
, 2010–present
George Washington's Papers
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
made a deliberate effort to organize and preserve his personal papers. He was aware of the effect that his life and career would have on the documents' appeal and in 1797 he considered building a library to house them. Washington died in 1799 before any such library could be constructed and bequeathed the papers to his nephew, Bushrod Washington
Bushrod Washington
Bushrod Washington was a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice and the nephew of George Washington.Washington was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and was the son of John Augustine Washington, brother of the first president. Bushrod attended Delamere, an academy administered by the Rev....
. He had been correct in assuming that people would take interest in his documents and in the next forty years both Chief Justice John Marshall
John Marshall
John Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...
and future Harvard president Jared Sparks
Jared Sparks
Jared Sparks was an American historian, educator, and Unitarian minister. He served as President of Harvard University from 1849 to 1853.-Biography:...
borrowed the papers to write their respective works on the first president.
Between 1833 and 1839 Sparks published 12 volumes of The Writings of George Washington. He was aware of the magnitude of Washington's document collection and therefore made a conscious effort to include only "the most valuable parts of Washington's writings." Sparks also modified the text of many of the letters. He felt it was his duty to polish the "awkward use of words, faults of grammar, or inaccuracies of style" that appeared in the papers so as to not dull the president's legacy. In one example Sparks changed Washington's "but a flea-bite" to the more refined, "totally inadequate." In another, where Washington had written a nickname ("Old Put"), Sparks replaced it with the individual's rank and surname, "General Putnam." The result, while more aesthetically pleasing, skewed Washington's words and presented an incomplete portrait of the man behind the papers.
Sparks' influence extended not only to editing Washington's words, but to the physical papers themselves. As he had carefully selected what papers were important enough to include in his volumes and which ones weren't, Sparks would occasionally give away some of the "unimportant" documents. As a result, many hundreds, if not thousands, of Washington's papers were scattered about the country and world, settling in private hands and small libraries. With so many of Washington's papers strewn about the globe, any future projects would be incomplete unless they undertook the massive endeavor to locate these documents.
In an effort to correct Sparks' editorial changes in The Writings of George Washington, Worthington C. Ford
Worthington C. Ford
Worthington Chauncey Ford was an American historian and editor of a number of collections of documents from early American history. He served in a variety of government positions: first, as the chief of the Bureau of Statistics for the U.S. Department of State, from 1885–1889, then at the U.S...
, the future head of the Library of Congress's manuscript division, began his own editorial project. The product was a 14-volume series published from 1889 and 1893 also entitled, The Writings of George Washington, that barely utilized more documents than Sparks had.
Between 1931 and 1944, John C. Fitzpatrick, who had retired from the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, published The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799. This 39-volume set greatly eclipsed the earlier works by Sparks and Ford and was widely accepted and respected among the academic community. However, Fitzpatrick only utilized manuscripts housed in major repositories, such as the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
and New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
, and, like the previous compilers of Washington's papers, predominantly included documents Washington had written. In leaving out letters that Washington had received, all of these works presented only one half of the story.
Project History
In 1966 the Virginia state archivist, William J. Van Schreeven, proposed that the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
sponsor a new documentary editing project for Washington's papers. At a time when the papers of John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
, Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, political philosopher, one of America's first constitutional lawyers and the first United States Secretary of the Treasury...
, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, and James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
were all being edited, one individual, arguably the most central figure in the formative years of the republic, was noticeably absent. The University thereby agreed to give Washington his due and in 1968, the University of Virginia and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association is a non-profit organization that preserves and maintains the Mount Vernon estate originally owned by George Washington.-History:...
launched a new effort to publish the papers of George Washington. The new effort, titled the 'Papers of George Washington', named Donald Jackson, formerly of the University of Illinois Press, editor-in-chief. Though it began almost 25 years after Fitzpatrick published his final volume, this project ambitiously sought to surpass all of the previous undertakings. Unlike Fitzpatrick, Ford, and Sparks, Jackson's Papers of George Washington determined to be the most comprehensive compilation yet and include not just letters Washington wrote, but those he received. The project also sought to include all other documents attributable to Washington, including military orders, council of war minutes, intelligence reports, addresses, financial records, farm reports, and ledgers. In addition, rather than only utilize documents that resided in major repositories like the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library, the new Papers of George Washington commenced a massive search to locate documents in libraries, historical societies, and public collections across the globe. The search resulted in identifying and procuring copies of 140,000 documents, making the Papers of George Washington the largest such collection ever compiled.
Between 1976 and 1979, the Papers of George Washington published The Diaries of George Washington. This six-volume set contains all of Washington's diary entries from 1748 to December 13, 1799, the day before he died. In 1981, the Papers published a one-volume daybook from the later years of Washington's presidency, titled, The Journal of the Proceedings of the President.
During this time, Donald Jackson's successor as editor-in-chief, W.W. Abbot, devised a new system through which to present Washington's papers. Abbot divided the documents into five series, with each section corresponding to a different period in Washington's life:
- The Colonial Series (1744 - June 1775)
- The Revolutionary War Series (June 1775 - December 1783)
- The Confederation Series (January 1784 - September 1788)
- The Presidential Series (September 1788 - March 1797)
- The Retirement Series (March 1797 - December 1799)
This system introduced a revolutionary new way to publish papers. In enabling the series to be published out of order, it allowed documents and writings from the subject's later years to be available earlier than they would have been otherwise. The success of Abbot's classification encouraged other Founding Fathers projects, such as the Thomas Jefferson Papers, to adopt their own versions of the system.
In 2004 the Papers of George Washington embarked upon a massive digitization project with Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon
The name Mount Vernon is a dedication to the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon. It was first applied to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, the first President of the United States...
and the University of Virginia Press
University of Virginia Press
The University of Virginia Press , founded in 1963, is a university press that is part of the University of Virginia.-External links:*...
's digital database, Rotunda. It was the first of the major Founding Father documentary editing projects to do so. The result was the Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, an online publication of the 55 volumes that had been published up to that point. As a "living edition," the PGWDE enables the editors to correct known errors in the print volumes and compile and standardize references to people, topics, and sources that have appeared multiple times throughout the project's 40-year history. In addition, the PGWDE is updated regularly with revised and improved annotations, new documents, and the latest print volumes.
On April 29, 2005, editor-in-chief Ted Crackel, staff members Christine Patrick, Phil Chase, and John C. Pinheiro, as well as the chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Bruce Cole, presented President George W. Bush with what was then the latest volume of the Presidential Series. After a brief ceremony in the Oval Office
Oval Office
The Oval Office, located in the West Wing of the White House, is the official office of the President of the United States.The room features three large south-facing windows behind the president's desk, and a fireplace at the north end...
, the editors donated a full set of the Papers of George Washington to the White House.
Since its inception in 1968, the Papers of George Washington has published 63 of its projected 90 volumes and completed the Colonial, Confederation, and Retirement series. It remains on the schedule to finish the complete Papers in about 2023. Upon completion of the project, the Papers of George Washington's 140,000 document copies will move to Mount Vernon where they will constitute an important part of the collection at the new Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Together with Mount Vernon's resources, the new library will house the most comprehensive collection of copies of Washington's papers in the world.
On October 12, 2010, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the University of Virginia Press announced plans to create a new web site to provide free access to the papers of the Founding Fathers. The project, entitled The Founders Online, will launch in October 2011 and will include the 154 volumes that have been published by the current George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison documentary editing projects. By June, 2013, it will include the papers of Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin. The site will include all of the content from the print volumes, such as full transcriptions and annotations, and will be continuously updated to reflect new volumes and discoveries. It will allow users to read, browse, and search the voluminous texts of the Founders in one place and will serve as much of a resource for educators as it will be for scholars.
The Papers of George Washington project at the University of Virginia is different from the George Washington Papers American Memory
American Memory
American Memory is an Internet-based archive for public domain image resources, as well as audio, video, and archived Web content. It is published by the Library of Congress...
database at the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in two major ways. First, their goals and purposes are very different. In presenting transcriptions of documents that are heavily annotated, the Papers of George Washington seeks to serve as a vital informational resource for academic research on Washington. In contrast, American Memory's George Washington Papers displays images of documents, few transcriptions, and even fewer annotations, making it an excellent resource for accessing original manuscripts, not for thorough research. The second major difference is the size and scope of each of these collections. The American Memory collection primarily includes documents from the Library of Congress, whereas the Papers of George Washington includes copies of documents from small and large American repositories, private collectors, and international libraries.
The Editing Process
The mission of a documentary editingEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
project is twofold. The first job is to provide accurate, readable, and accessible transcriptions of historical documents. The second is to provide readers with the proper information to understand and use the text. This process is known as annotation
Annotation
An annotation is a note that is made while reading any form of text. This may be as simple as underlining or highlighting passages.Annotated bibliographies give descriptions about how each source is useful to an author in constructing a paper or argument...
. Fulfilling both of these goals takes time and, as each document must be examined individually, makes the editing process a complex one.
Before any work can be done to prepare the document for publication, the manuscript must first be authenticated
Authentication
Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...
. This means that the editors must verify that the signature, handwriting, date, and content fit the individual in question. They must also ensure that the paper and ink align with the standards of the day and that the document has a proven history, or provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...
. This process takes a tremendous amount of time, but is crucial in maintaining the integrity of the papers and the project.
Next, the editors must select which version of a document they want to use. For documents from the 18th century it is common to find multiple drafts or copies of letters in letter books (bound volumes in which individuals would copy out the text of letters they had sent and received). Editors prefer to utilize the document that was physically sent and not these copies, but when the official document is unavailable, they use what they have. In this case, they then have to decide which of the copies they want to utilize, for they all may differ in terms of content and date.
The next step in the editing process is transcribing the document. The style of 18th-century handwriting
Handwriting
Handwriting is a person's particular & individual style of writing with pen or pencil, which contrasts with "Hand" which is an impersonal and formalised writing style in several historical varieties...
makes this difficult enough, but editors also have to contend with abbreviations, spelling, capitalization, and grammar that had not yet been standardized. In addition, many individuals in this time period lacked formal education and proper training, making deciphering handwriting and sentences even more difficult. The physical conditions of the document can also be problematic to transcription. Faded ink, damage to the manuscript, and unclear photocopies make transcription a painstaking process. The editors' goal is to preserve the original spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing of the manuscript, as well as the author's intentions and words. Occasionally an editor will have reason to make changes to the text and will outline those changes, as well as their reasons for doing so, in the book's introduction.
In annotating documents, the editor identifies people, places, and events that the reader probably wouldn't know, in addition to any further information that would help the reader understand the document. This process requires the editor to conduct thorough research and write short, concise summaries on specific points. Similarly, annotations contain information about where the original document is located, what textual problems the editor may have found in the manuscript, and what alternative versions of the document may exist. Annotations can also include other substantive information mentioned within the document, such as attached maps or illustrations, or relevant letters and enclosures. According to Philander D. Chase, former editor-in-chief of the Papers of George Washington, "the work of properly annotating and indexing each document is one of the most time-consuming tasks the editors perform."
Funding Agencies
The Papers of George Washington is funded in part by the National Endowment for the HumanitiesNational Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...
, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Packard Humanities Institute
Packard Humanities Institute
The Packard Humanities Institute is a non-profit foundation, established in 1987, and located in Los Altos, California, which funds projects in a wide range of conservation concerns in the fields of archaeology, music, film preservation, and historic conservation, plus Greek epigraphy , with an...
, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association
The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association is a non-profit organization that preserves and maintains the Mount Vernon estate originally owned by George Washington.-History:...
, and the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
.
Awards
In 1986, the Papers of George Washington project received the Lyman H. Butterfield Award from the Association for Documentary Editing for excellence in the publication of documentary editions.On March 2003, Papers of George Washington Assistant Editor Dr. Christine Sternberg Patrick received the Thomas Jefferson Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government
Society for History in the Federal Government
The Society for History in the Federal Government is a private non-profit organization established in 1979 to promote an understanding of the history of the federal government in the United States and to represent historians serving in the agencies of the U.S. Federal Government.The Society has...
for editing Presidential Series volume 11 (August 1792 - January 1793). Patrick was lauded for "displaying all the qualities as a historian and an editor that make this documentary edition outstanding."
On November 10, 2005 the Papers of George Washington received the National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...
from President George W. Bush in the Oval Office of the White House. To this day it remains the only documentary editing project to receive this honor.
In 2007, the American Library Association
American Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
's Choice magazine named the Papers of George Washington Digital Edition an Outstanding Academic Title. Choice bestows this honor upon books and electronic sites and resources that provide valuable resources to undergraduates and libraries.
Publications
The Papers of George Washington project has distinguished itself for publishing at a pace of two volumes a year. That average is twice that of the other Founding Father documentary editing projects. It continues to be on schedule to complete its projected 90-volume collection by 2023.- The Diaries of George Washington, ed. Dorothy Twohig, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1976–1979). Completed.
- The Journal of the Proceedings of the President, 1793-1979, ed. Dorothy Twohig (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1981). Completed.
- The Papers of George Washington. The Colonial Series, 1744-June 1775, ed. W.W. Abbot & Dorothy Twohig, 10 vols. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1983–1995). Completed.
- The Papers of George Washington. The Revolutionary War Series, June 1775-December 1783, ed. W.W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Theodore J. Crackel, & Edward G. Lengel, 20 vols. to date (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1985-). Ongoing.
- The Papers of George Washington. The Confederation Series, January 1784-September 1788, ed. W. W. Abbot & Dorothy Twohig, 6 vols. (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1992–1997). Completed.
- The Papers of George Washington. The Presidential Series, September 1788-March 1797, ed. W.W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Theodore J. Crackel, & Edward G. Lengel, 16 vols. to date (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1987-). Ongoing.
- The Papers of George Washington. The Retirement Series, March 1797-December 1799, ed. Dorothy Twohig, 4 vols (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1998–1999). Completed.
Reviews
- Kim-Brown, Caroline. "Papers of George Washington: Documenting a Presidency." Humanities 27, no. 1 (2006)
- Cheryl LaGuardia. "eReviews: The Papers of George Washington. Library Journal, 8/15/2007
- Reviews of The Papers of George Washington Print Editions
External links
- Papers of George Washington
- University of Virginia
- Rotunda, New Digital Scholarship from the University of Virginia Press
- The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799
- George Washington's Diaries: An Abridgment
- George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens
- National Endowment for the Humanities
- National Historical Publications and Records Commission
- University of Virginia Press