Contact: Charlotte Morford Scott,
University of Virginia Library,
[log in to unmask], 434-924-4254
MONUMENTAL COLLECTION OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS NOW AVAILABLE ONLINE
An archive of historic documents and letters
written by or on behalf of George Washington is
now available online, thanks to a cooperative
effort between the University of Virginia
Library's Electronic Text Center and a
documentary editing project, The Papers of
George Washington. The archive is the
electronic edition of John C. Fitzpatrick's
comprehensive study, _The Writings of George
Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources,
1745-1799_, a monumental collection of over
17,400 letters and documents.
Fitzpatrick's work was originally prepared under
the direction of the U.S. George Washington
Bicentennial Commission, organized by Congress
in 1932 to commemorate the two-hundredth
anniversary of Washington's birth. The Library
of Congress held the single largest collection
of Washington manuscripts - more than 60,000
separate documents - and Fitzpatrick, who had
served as Assistant Chief of the Manuscripts
Division for 30 years, assembled 37 volumes plus
a two-volume index of the Washington papers.
While the work was monumental for its time,
there were still more papers than even
Fitzpatrick was able to include.
Enter the Papers of George Washington, a
documentary editing project housed at the
University of Virginia Library. The Washington
Papers team joined the Library's E-Text Center
to make Fitzpatrick's work available online
while their own project, a 90-volume, updated
and comprehensive presentation of Washington
papers, is in process. "Fitzpatrick's Writings
are an incredible achievement by any standard,"
says Frank Grizzard, Senior Associate Editor of
The George Washington Papers. "But it presents
only one side of the story, since letters sent
to Washington are mentioned only infrequently,
in the notes. Using today's documentary editing
procedures, we're producing a collection that is
far more inclusive than was possible in
Fitzpatrick's day. Nonetheless, having his
volumes online is a crucial bridge while we work
on completing the 90-volumes of Washington
papers."
The Library of Congress supplied the SGML texts
to the U.Va. Library's E-text Center, which in
turn converted the text to XML for enhanced
online searching and browsing functionality.
"Our mission at the Electronic Text Center is to
make humanities texts available to the world
through the Internet," says Matt Gibson,
Associate Director of the E-Text Center. "We're
delighted to be able to make the Library of
Congress' Fitzpatrick volumes accessible to a
global audience. The collection represents a
significant addition to current E-text materials
and greatly enriches the University of Virginia
Library's digital holdings."
Links for detailed information on:
· Fitzpatrick volumes online:
http://etext.virginia.edu/washington/fitzpatrick/
· Electronic Text Center:
http://etext.virginia.edu
· Papers of George Washington Project:
http://www.gwpapers.virginia.edu
· University of Virginia Library:
http://www.lib.virginia.edu
###
--
Frank E. Grizzard, Jr.
Associate Editor
Papers of George Washington
University of Virginia
[log in to unmask]
http://www.virginia.edu/gwpapers
HEY, MY BOOK IS OUT!
_George Washington: A Biographical Companion_
published by ABC-CLIO in May 2002. See my website:
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~feg3e/GWBio/
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