A new partnership between the University of Virginia Press and the National Archives will make key documents from the founding fathers available to the public for free.
The project aims to develop a new website to provide greater access to letters, military strategies, meeting notes, journals and other documents relating to the founding of the United States. It will include documents from key historical figures, such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Benjamin Franklin.
The project originated after Congress passed legislation in 2008 calling for greater accessibility to the founding documents. The National Historical Publications and Records Commission began a dialogue with the University Press as a result, explained Penelope Kaiserlian, director of the University Press. Kaiserlian said the Commission approached the University Press with an invitation to work on the project because of its expertise, resources and prior experience with digital imprinting.
"This award to help the University of Virginia Press create a new online presence for the papers of our nation's founders is great news for the University and for scholars everywhere," University President Teresa A. Sullivan said in a press release.
The University Press's digital imprint, known as Rotunda, has already published licensed digital editions of papers from the first four presidents, Kaiserlain said.
The new project will make documents from the founding era "far more widely available than they have ever been before," Kaiserlian said, explaining that currently only a handful of libraries have print editions of the documents, and those that exist are not widely known.
The new online resource will be accessible through the National Archives website and will allow users to search, browse and view tens of thousands of documents. The NHPRC will provide up to $2 million of funding for the project. A prototype website - containing about 154 volumes from papers of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison - will be prepared for October 2011. The first public version, which also will include papers of Alexander Hamilton, will be launched by June 2012, the press release said.
"As a public university, we applaud the leadership of the National Archives in bringing this important archive to life," Sullivan said. "Making these materials available to the public for free reflects the core values of the University and indeed of our nation's founding generation, whose words will now be readily available to teachers, students and citizens"
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