Documentary editing
projects of the papers of the first four presidents first appeared in
1950. This essay will briefly review the printed editions of George
Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and then
compare, in depth, their respective Web sites. In addition, I will discuss
two other sites relating to the collections of Washington and Jefferson
papers at the Library of Congress. Finally, I will study the Web site
of Yale Law School’s Avalon Project of papers of the U.S. presidents.
There is a great disparity in the content of the Web sites among the
four documentary projects. I will be commenting on the extent to which
each project has embraced the new media. |