Early American Manuscripts Project
About the project
With support from the The Polonsky Foundation, The New York Public Library digitized upwards of 50,000 pages of historic early American manuscript material. The Early American Manuscripts Project allows students, researchers, and the general public to revisit major political events of the era from new perspectives and to explore currents of everyday social, cultural, and economic life in the colonial, revolutionary, and early national periods. The project presents on-line for the first time high quality facsimiles of key documents from America’s Founding, including the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Drawing on the full breadth of the Library’s manuscript collections, it also makes widely available less well-known manuscript sources, including business papers of Atlantic merchants, diaries of people ranging from elite New York women to Christian Indian preachers, and organizational records of voluntary associations and philanthropic organizations. Between 2015 and 2017, this trove of manuscript sources, previously available only at The Library, was made freely available through nypl.org.
Blog posts
- George Chalmers and the History Wars of the American Revolutionary Era
- Letterbooks, Indexes, and Learning about Early American Business
- Traces from Jefferson's Account Book:
- The Olive Branch and the Declaration of Independence
- Unexpected Sources: Slave Cloth in the Richard Henry Lee Letters
- Reintroducing the Boston Committee of Correspondence Records
- Joseph Hawley Papers Digitized
- Founding Firefighters: Volunteer Firefighters and Early American Constitutional History
- The United States of Fredonia?
- Top 9 Documents from the Boston Committee of Correspondence Records
- Silas Deane: Reading and Parenting in Revolutionary America
- Hannah Lawrence Schieffelin's Journey Through Revolutionary America
- Politicizing the Federal Courts in Early America
- Celebrating the Stamp Act's Repeal
- The Material Realities of Slavery in Early New York
- Mary Katharine Goddard's Declaration of Independence
- Drinking Whiskey in the Whiskey Rebellion: The Soldiers' Perspective
- Disposessing Loyalists and Redistributing Property in Revolutionary New York
- Sympathy for a Spy
- The Specter of Foreign Influence in Early American Politics
- Literary Politics in 1790s New York City
- Prisons, Property, and the American Revolution
- Tammany Hall's Nineteenth-Century Retweets
- From Boston's Resistance to an American Revolution
- The Other Mrs. Adams
- Women's Lives in 1790s NYC: Stories from the Almshouse Records
- Transportation, Communications, and Colonial War
- Moments from the Diary of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker, 1799-1806
- The Diary of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker, 1799-1806
- February 8, 1800, Labor in New York City
- March 31, 1800, A Sensational Murder Trial
- April 30, 1800, New York State Elections of 1800
- May 27, 1799, Lottery Jackpot
- June 24, 1802, Freemasonry in New York City
- Summer 1803, Epidemic Disease and Public Health
- October 8, 1800, Personal Toll of Financial Failure
Digitized archival collections
- Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker diary
- Boston Committee of Correspondence records
- Minutes of the Committee of Brookhaven, Manor of St. George and Patentship of Moriches
- George Chalmers collection - New York
- George Chalmers collection - Virginia
- George Chalmers collection- Papers relating to Indians
- George Chalmers Collection- Philadelphia
- Chelsea Fire Club record book
- Hugh Gaine receipt book
- Hugh Gaine papers
- Gouverneur & Kemble cash book
- Gouverneur & Kemble letter book
- Alexander Hamilton papers
- Alexander Hamilton plan of a constitution for America
- Joseph Hawley papers
- Joseph Hawley correspondence and documents
- Thomas Jefferson papers
- Thomas Jefferson account book
- Joseph Johnson diary
- Henry Knox papers
- James Madison papers
- Philip Mazzei papers
- Theodorus Bailey Myers collection
- New York State Comptroller memorandum book
- New York Court of Vice Admiralty records
- Adolph Philipse estate records
- Fort Niagara statement of account with Edward Pollard
- Hannah Schieffelin narrative (Schieffelin family papers)
- Reports of the Board of Treasury
- George Washington notebook as a Virginia colonel
- Noah Webster papers
- Oliver Wolcott letterbook
- George Gibbs collection of Oliver Wolcott correspondence
- Lewis Ogden letterbook
- Silas Deane letters
- Richard Henry Lee letters
- Daniel Phoenix, Jr. receipt book
- Correspondence of Elbridge Gerry
- Alexander Anderson Papers
- James Maury letters
- George Washington Papers
- Title of executors & administrators / by the Honbl. Tapping Reeve, Litchfield, Connecticut
- Minutes of the Commissioners of the Alms-House and Bridewell
- Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order records
- Liebmann collection of American historical documents relating to spiritous liquors
- Abraham Yates, Jr. papers
- Henry Dearborn journal
- Livingston Family Papers
- List of loyalists against whom judgments were given under the Confiscation Act
- Samuel Adams papers
- Robert Morris papers
- John Hyslop diary
- Critical remarks by the committee of examination on compositions &c presented to the Calliopean Society
- Fort Ontario Ledger
- Jabez Fitch Diary
- Philip Schuyler papers
- Robert Brooke papers relating to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal
- Collin MacGregor letterbooks
- Fifty-seven early New York documents
- Schuyler-Malcolm family papers
- William Smith Jr. papers
- Andrew Jackson and William B. Lewis correspondence
- Accounts and transactions relative to the estate of Samuel Bayard
- New York City Mayor's Court trial minutes 1789-1791
- New York City Aldermen Court records 1797-1798
- Henry Ten Eyck docket of actions at law and related documents 1782-1787, 1826
- United States District Court of New York proceedings 1796-1798
- Henry Laurens diary 1780-1781
Contact
Learn more about the Early American Manuscripts Project, ask questions, and find out how to access resources held in the Manuscripts and Archives Division by contacting manuscripts@nypl.org.
2020