American History Collection

One of the outstanding documentary editions in American scholarship, The Adams Papers collects the correspondence and other significant papers of our nation's first great political family. At the center, of course, is John Adams. Beginning with his early diaries and three volumes selected from... More

Gouverneur Morris played an important role in the American Revolution, made profound contributions to the Constitution (including writing its Preamble), and was the American minister to France during the height of the French Revolution. He began keeping a diary after arriving in France in 1789 and... More

Convening first in New York and later in Philadelphia from March 1789 to March 1791, these earliest iterations of the Senate and the House of Representatives worked with a new president to establish a government subject to the vision of a constitution less than a year in existence. Containing all... More

As the largest, oldest, and wealthiest of the original thirteen colonies, Virginia played a central role in the fight for independence and as a state in the new republic. This importance is reflected in the number of Virginians who filled key national leadership positions. Three remarkable... More

Containing over 2,400 letters, with another thousand letters to follow in periodic updates, this XML-based archive allows users to perform simple or advanced searches by period, correspondent, or topic. The letters may also be accessed directly through a sortable list or read in chronological order... More

The Rotunda Founders Early Access project makes available for the first time thousands of unpublished documents from our nation’s founders in a free online resource. Conceived with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities... More

Killed before he was fifty in the most famous duel in American history, Alexander Hamilton had the shortest life of all the major founding fathers and experienced a career filled with as much controversy as triumph. His influence on our nation, however, has been consistent and profound. We remember... More

The papers of Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722–1793) and her daughter Harriott Pinckney Horry (1748–1830) document the lives of two observant and articulate founding-era women who were members of one of South Carolina’s leading families, as well as distinguished people in their own... More

All 59 volumes of the celebrated print edition published through 2009, encompassing five series and the complete diaries, are now available in one XML-based publication. Users may search on full text and by date, author, and recipient. The exceptional indexing of the print volumes is combined here... More

The Papers of James Madison documents the life and work of one of the most important political and constitutional thinkers in our nation’s history. A vital project that continues to add new volumes, this publication has been consulted for decades by scholars and students for primary-source... More

 John Marshall was the longest-serving chief justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, with a tenure lasting more than three decades. He was also arguably the most influential. Under his leadership the court defined itself in ways that persist to this day.Available for the first time online, Marshall... More

One of the leading families of colonial South Carolina and the early republic, the Pinckneys of Charleston were witnesses to—and often active participants in—many of the defining customs and transforming events of the early national South. This digital resource collects, for the first time, the... More

Crucial to our nation’s history as author of the Declaration of Independence and third president, Thomas Jefferson was also a major figure in the Enlightenment, representing for Europeans the embodiment of the early nineteenth-century American mind. Since 1950, his writings have been compiled... More

 People of the Founding Era is a powerful new online resource that provides biographical information for thousands of individuals active during a crucial period in our history. Beginning with 12,000 but eventually expanding to over 60,000 people born between 1713 and 1815, the subjects include... More

The careers of few figures in American history have encompassed as much as did John Jay’s. His accomplishments span pre- and post-Revolutionary history and extend into all three branches of government. Best known as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jay entered public service as a... More

OPEN ACCESS THROUGH APRIL 15, 2021Governor of Tennessee, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and eleventh president of the United States, James K. Polk was a fierce Jacksonian who expanded the nation’s boundaries more than anyone since Thomas Jefferson. He is remembered today as one of the... More

Now with links to Library of Congress manuscript facsimilesAndrew Jackson was born near the border of the colonial Carolinas and would take part in many of the early republic’s signal events, but he came to define a new era in American history and left the presidency forever changed.Orphaned... More

In the current “age of impeachment,” Andrew Johnson has gained a new historical relevance. But Johnson’s career is notable for more than his impeachment, with much to tell us about Civil War–era politics and the complexity of Reconstruction, through a trajectory that is one of the most compelling,... More

Born in the final days of the American Revolution, Daniel Webster would leave his mark on the following century, of which he was one of its mightiest statesmen. His remarkable life and career illustrate like few others the central issues of that century, especially the growing rift that would... More

Ulysses S. Grant never intended to make a career in the military, much less go into politics, but he ended up commanding the U.S. forces in perhaps the most important war America ever fought and then serving as its eighteenth president during a period of profound change.    Following... More

Taking office with a Democrat-held House and Senate, Woodrow Wilson embarked on one of the most important chapters in the Progressive movement, approving the Federal Reserve Act, establishing the Fair Trade Commission, and strongly endorsing the Nineteenth Amendment and women’s right to vote.... More

The online edition of The Presidential Recordings includes hundreds of hours of presidential tapes covering the major issues of the LBJ administration, from the War on Poverty to the Civil Rights Movement to the Vietnam War. Each conversation is fully transcribed and annotated, and accompanied by... More