The Adams Papers Editorial Project is an ongoing project by historians and documentary editors at

Massachusetts Historical Society The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) is a major historical archive specializing in early American, Massachusetts, and New England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154 Boylston Street ...

to organize, transcribe, and publish a wide range of manuscripts, diaries, letterbooks and politically and culturally important letters authored by and received by the family of

Founding Father The following is a list of national founders of sovereign states who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e., political system ...

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...

, his wife

Abigail Adams Abigail Adams ( ''née'' Smith; – October 28, 1818) was the wife and closest advisor of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. She was a founder o ...

and their family, including

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diploma ...

. Over 27,000 records have been catalogued to date. Administrators of the database also track the location and content of Adams related materials at other scholarly institutions. By virtue of its collaborative nature, the project simultaneously sheds light on the lives of John Adams’ fellow

Founding Fathers The Founding Fathers of the United States, often simply referred to as the Founding Fathers or the Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence ...

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

John Jay John Jay (, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, diplomat, signatory of the Treaty of Paris (1783), Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served from 1789 to 1795 as the first chief justice of the United ...

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

James Madison James Madison (June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed as the ...

and

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

History

The project was originally begun in 1954 by historian Lyman H. Butterfield. Butterfield introduced a system of transcription, annotation, and collation methods for the archive informed by his experience at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

's The Papers of Thomas Jefferson project. Following the publication of the project's first volumes in 1961, President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

hailed the project as a "formidable record of a formidable family deserves the kind of great editorial support it is now receiving". Since that time, more than 50 volumes have been published by

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

. The collection has been organized as a series. Series I includes transcriptions of the diaries of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and others. Series II is a compilation of personal Adams Family correspondence exchanged between 1761 and 1798. Series III includes papers and legal instruments dated 1755 through 1785. Series IV is a record of visual documentation of John and Abigail Adams, as well as John Quincy Adams and his wife Louisa, from paintings to engravings. Items range in date from 1639 to 1889.

Digitized collections

The Adams Papers Digital Edition is available through the Massachusetts Historical Society'
website
It has also been published online as part of the

University of Virginia Press The University of Virginia Press (or UVaP) is a university press A university press is an academic publishing house specializing in monographs and scholarly journals. They are often an integral component of a large research university. They pu ...

's Rotunda project, which offers a subscription-based service focusing a comprehensive collection of papers from America's Founding Era. In October 2010, the

National Archives and Records Administration The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also task ...

and University of Virginia Press announced their intention to create

Founders Online Founders Online is a research website providing free access to a digitized collection representing the papers of seven of the most influential figures in the founding of the United States. Among the 185,000 documents available through the website ...

, a public access website devoted to the writings of the

, encompassing the papers of Madison as well as six other founders. The website went online in October 2013, providing free access to the complete record of Adams' writings, speeches, and correspondence. The Founders Online project also includes the annotated writings and correspondence of

, and

. The site's searchable database includes 185,000 individual documents that have been drawn from the letterpress editions of the founders' papers.

Funding

Primary funders of the Adams Papers currently include the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the

, the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

, and the

Packard Humanities Institute The Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) is a non-profit foundation, established in 1987, and located in Los Altos, California, which funds projects in a wide range of conservation concerns in the fields of archaeology, music, film preservation, ...

References

External links

* at

{{John Quincy Adams John Adams John Quincy Adams Historiography of the United States

History

Digitized collections

Funding

See also

References

External links