National Archives plans for online access to Founding Fathers’ papers
Posted by Jacque on May 12th, 2008
In response to concerns raised by Congress’s Committees on Appropriations that the complete papers of America’s Founding Fathers are not available online, the National Archives released a planning document (PDF) for how they would provide online access, within a reasonable timeframe, to researchers, students and the general public.
The report’s Executive Summary notes that the papers of the Founding Fathers —- John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington -— are vital to our understanding of American democracy. Making those writings available to the public has been the solitary work of scholars for the last 68 years. But now, in the age of information and a period of renewed interest in American history, there is a need to make the documents readily available online.
“The report provides a brief history of the scholarship that has gone into producing the documentary editions of the papers of the Founding Fathers, outlines the challenges we face in making the transition to the Internet age of the 21st century, and proposes options for achieving the shared goal of world-wide access to the political thought that produced the creation of the United States of America.” [via Resource Shelf]