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Documentary Editing--Historical BackgroundAmericans from the inception of their Republic have eagerly embraced the need to preserve their history. The Massachusetts Historical Society set the stage for future documentary projects by publishing, in 1792, the first volume of a collection of New England records. Other editors throughout the nineteenth century printed manuscript collections of George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton. In 1831, the federal government inaugurated its own series, the American State Papers, to make official public documents available to citizens. Some of the privately funded editions, however, lacked rigorous, scholarly standards. The professionalization of the historical field did not occur until the late nineteenth century and, as an adjunct, historians in 1908 called for the creation of a permanent federal commission to determine what future projects deserved consideration. Although Congress did not establish the National Historical Publications Commission (NHPC) until 1934, other editorial projects, such as the congressionally mandated Territorial Papers project, and the Library of Congress’s sponsorship of editions on the Continental Congress and George Washington, were undertaken. The NHPC functioned only sporadically until 1950, when Congress authorized funding for a permanent staff. Why was there renewed interest in national historical publications? The modern age for documentary editing did not occur until the 1940s when Julian P. Boyd, at Princeton University, launched the definitive edition of the Thomas Jefferson Papers. New, at that time, technology of microforms and photocopying provided editors with the tools to make comprehensive editions possible. The sheer volume of documents, dispersed across wide geographic areas, had restricted editors from undertaking projects for major public figures. Because of the sheer volume of documentation, the earlier editions of the George Washington papers reprinted only letters from Washington, not to him. Boyd’s first volume of the Jefferson Papers was published in 1950 and the prospects for other such editions improved correspondingly. The reinvigoration of the NHPC in 1950 resulted in the establishment of several major documentary projects over the next two decades.[1] As historians panned the horizon for possible topics for new documentary projects, the founding fathers were obvious choices. In 1954, the Massachusetts Historical Society commenced the preparation of a comprehensive, published edition of the manuscripts of the family of John Adams. Within two years the University of Virginia began hosting the editors of the James Madison Papers and in 1969 they offered office space to the George Washington Papers project to publish a complete edition of Washington’s correspondence. The documentary editing projects of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison are still viable entities, producing authoritative editions of the correspondence and writings of our first presidents. This review essay will assess how successfully these projects have transitioned from exclusive use of the letterpress edition to employing new media. Papers of Thomas Jefferson
On the web site of the Papers of Thomas Jefferson project there is a modest claim that this series is “an unmatched source of scholarship on the nation’s third president” and is “designed to supplant the four highly selective and undependable editions of Jefferson’s writings published between 1829 and 1904 and to ensure that the task will not have to be redone.” While the Jefferson editors have authored a scholarly documentary edition, they have not employed the Web to generate interest in Jefferson. This web site, sponsored by the project’s publisher, Princeton University Press, is commercially oriented to sell books, not to educate, inform, or reach a wider audience. The editors are content to promote their books to the few who are willing to pay $99.50. The most important part of this web site is its link to the Library of Congress’s American Memory web site relating to its collection of Thomas Jefferson papers. The Library of Congress site provides a powerful search engine for accessing Jefferson’s papers. But it has also included informative, narrative links such as http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/grizzard/, which is a dissertation on the documentary history of the construction of the buildings at the University of Virginia, 1817-1828. The Jefferson editorial project also cites this link http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/grizzard/ but because the project has not updated its site, it is still steering the reader to an earlier, incomplete web site. It is obvious that the Jefferson project sees no value, beyond the commercial, in the Internet.
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Figure 2. Papers of John Adams Project |
This is the Massachusetts Historical Society web site and the Adams Papers project is only one element of it. It is certainly an improvement over the Jefferson site at Princeton, for the staff has made some attempt to give the public a flavor for documentary editing. They have selected six manuscripts to show the “before and after” process of editing. We are provided a short summary and an unreadable facsimile http://www.masshist.org/apselected_1.html and can choose to view a readable enlargement (this is copyrighted material, so there is no URL) and a transcription http://www.masshist.org/apselected_1_text.html. There is no in-depth analysis. Although this site is superficial, it does offer the viewer more than the Jefferson Papers site does. Besides the perfunctory ordering information for both the letterpress and microfilm editions, the Adams site lists the locations of those institutions that have complete sets of the microfilm. Other useful information includes a copyright statement, a selected bibliography, a time line and genealogy accompanied with images, a few quotes, and an all too brief biographical sketch. Curiously, the linked sites provide more information about John Adams than this one does. Obviously, this site is limited in scope and was never intended to provide more than a smattering of information. It is not as crassly commercial as the Jefferson site but it is clear that the staff lacks interest in reaching out to a wider audience beyond the few who purchase its volumes now, although the site’s elegant style and format may entice more buyers.
Figure 3. Papers of James Madison Project |
This is a simply arranged web site with few pretensions visually or structurally. Funding is often a problem for documentary projects that are dependent on grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (http://www.archives.gov/nhprc_and_other_grants/), funds from private charitable organizations, and contributions from individuals. The obligatory request for contributions is mentioned in the first paragraph and information for online ordering is available. Although there is no effort to provide an online index or database of its published volumes, the site attempts to educate the viewer about Madison by reprinting a balanced, biographical essay on him written by the project’s senior associate editor.[2]
Probably the most interesting, though technical, part of this web site
is the section treating how
documents are edited. Besides following a step-by-step process of
deciphering illegible handwriting, and making conjectures about words
missing in torn documents, editors sometimes face the unusual coded letter.
(See Figures 4 and 5.) The staff at the Papers of James Madison has given
the viewer a graphical display of the challenges editors face in presenting
a typed version for the reader. The Web is a perfect resource for formatting
this explanatory detail.
Figure 4. Coded Letter |
Figure 5. Code Key |
The Madison Papers staff has further sought to enlighten the public about the often tedious nature of editing by outlining the editorial process. The roadmap from typescript to print includes searching for documents, and transcribing and annotating them. These narrative, procedural descriptions are often left out of the printed version, but lend themselves to the more open, wide-ranging format of the Web. For instance, in the Madison site, there is a section still under construction, http://www.virginia.edu/pjm/mad-docs.html, which attempts to give a flavor of Madison’s handwriting. It succeeds in showing the quotidian difficulties faced by documentary editors. This “how to” approach to history lends itself more readily to the Web than to a scholarly tome.
Figure 6. Papers of George Washington Project |
The most exemplary web site of the four founding fathers’ documentary editing projects that I have reviewed is that of The Papers of George Washington. Since 1969 this project has published forty-four letterpress volumes of a projected ninety-volume set. The web site of the GW project perfectly compliments its published series. The site is crisp and clear, and it provides easily navigable links for the experienced researcher (for indexes see, http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/indexes/index.html) or the casual browser (for F.A.Q., http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/faq/index.html). There can be no doubt that many more readers will view and profit from the GW web site than from the printed volumes.
Most of the links are derivative of material already available in print.
Very little is new, just the format. For instance, the editors have compiled
a section on maps and images that gives the reader pictorial examples
without the bother of wading through many volumes. The letterpress edition
has a map and a map key of the growth of Mount Vernon from 1754 to 1786.[3]
Have the editors provided us in their web site link with anything new
that the reader could not get in the printed version? At first glance,
one of the map links appears to do so. The web page (http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/mtvernon/growth/index.html#)
reproduces the three printed pages exactly, but adds a pop-up box over
every tract. The reader benefits from not having to find the tract in
the printed key, but he has to read quickly as the pop-up box disappears
in a five seconds. There is no time to linger in this fast-paced age.
This feature is a bell and whistle that lacks substantive import. Nevertheless,
the editors, by attaching this information to their web site, have made
it more accessible.
The “Search
& Translate” link (http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/search/index.html)
on the home page is a useful aid for readers. One can link to the Google
search engine to find specific entries. In some cases one is linked to
a cumulative index and in others to a full text transcription. The importance
of the Web as a database resource is evident here. The reader can search
this multi-volume series in minutes anywhere in the world and not have
to be tied to a library that owns the series. In addition, a foreigner
can easily link to the AltaVista Translation Service for a translation
of the site into five other languages. How many English-print volumes
are ever translated? The editors of this series have enthusiastically
embraced that vision of the Web that foresees unlimited audiences.
The GW Papers have not just taken their traditional, already published,
narrative to a new medium, the Web, to reach a wider audience. The editors
have actively engaged students with lesson plans found in its educational
resources section (http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/lesson/index.html
). By using documents and ephemera from the time period, such as “Washington's
note to a British general, a song composed for him on his inaugural trip
to New York, a letter from his niece, farm records from Mount Vernon and
instructions from his dentist,” the editors paint a picture of “the
life and times.” In addition, they try to “challenge students
to apply other basic skills--reading comprehension, geography, mathematics
and English as they progress through the questions.”
Documentary editing projects have very traditional goals--the preservation
and dissemination of documentation about people and events. Editors have
accomplished these goals in the past through the production of letterpress
and microfilm editions of transcribed documents. These media provided
greater accessibility to material often housed in dusty folders in repositories
around the world. Now the Internet has provided us with another medium.
It is too early to foresee multi-volume projects such as those of the
founding fathers placing all of their publications on the Web. How do
you pay editors’ salaries if the fruit of their labor is distributed
for free? Some projects are facing this challenge by incorporating their
work on the Web but waiting until they have sold a sufficient quantity
of books/microfilm before adding the index.[4] Meanwhile,
the Library of Congress’s American Memory web sites for the Washington
and Jefferson
Papers will provide the reader with a valuable, searchable database of
facsimiles of their letters.
Some projects have succumbed, it would appear, to the clamor for a presence
on the Web by having a bare-bones homepage that merely advertises their
printed volumes. The Thomas Jefferson Papers is in this category. The
John Adams Papers project site is only a slight improvement, employing
a few images and documents, and a brief narrative. The James Madison Papers
project site provides a useful visual description of the textual problems
of transcribing documents. The George Washington Papers project has the
most sophisticated site of the four founding fathers, using both database
and narrative to good advantage. This site is informative but also entertaining,
though it does not have the video and audio clips that seem de rigueur
nowadays. The editors provide solid history in a pleasing fashion that
reaches out to scholars and buffs alike. The legacy of this generation
of Washington Papers editors is their welcome embrace of a new media to
help preserve the past.
[1]
Mary-Jo Kline, A Guide to Documentary Editing (Baltimore, 1987), 2-5.
[2] David Mattern, “James Madison,” The
American Revolution 1775-1783: An Encyclopedia, eds. Richard L. Blanco
and Paul J. Sanborn (New York, 1993), 2:1002-8.
[3] Donald Jackson, ed., The Diaries of George Washington,
Vol. 1, 1748-65 (Charlottesville, 1976), 240-41.
[4] For more information on documentary editing and
the Web see, Cathy Moran Hajo, “So You Think You Need a Web Page?
Designing World Wide Web Access to Documentary Editing Projects,”
Association for Documentary Editing Meeting, October 16, 1997.
Available online at: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/web.htm.
Christine Hughes
Papers of George Washington, 1976-77
Papers of Daniel Chester French, 1985-86
Naval War of 1812 Documentary Project, 1986-Present
