Tag: 50 Years of Editing
Mount Vernon and the Papers of George Washington: A Partnership Since 1968
Katie Blizzard
The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) has protected and preserved George Washington’s home since before the Civil War. And their mission has always gone beyond one of simple architectural conservation.
The Adams Family and the Washingtons: A Political Friendship
Katie Blizzard
The Adams Papers editorial project at the Massachusetts Historical Society began in 1954, and from its inception, the Washingtons have played key roles in the volumes we have published. The very first volume of Adams Family Correspondence includes a letter written by John Adams in 1775 from the Continental Congress to his wife Abigail Adams at home in Braintree, Massachusetts. In the letter, John introduced the new commander in chief.
“[A] clear & comprehensive view of facts”1: Editing the Volume of Addendum and Omitted Materials
Katie Blizzard
These special materials, which we refer to as addendum and omitted materials, total in the hundreds. A large fraction concerns items intentionally omitted by editors, but others—nearly 100—are documents previously believed to be lost. We plan to publish all the addendum and omitted items in a separate volume on our digital edition in order to make the Papers of George Washington as comprehensive as possible.
Prospecting for the Real George Washington, Authors Mine the Rich Veins of the PGW Edition
Katie Blizzard
The past 20 years have seen a proliferation of Washington biographies, as well as monographs and treatises on the Revolutionary War and the Early American Republic, whose authors and researchers have found deep scholarship and unprecedented accessibility in the annotated volumes of the PGW edition.
50th Anniversary Commemoration: Evaluating The Papers of George Washington
Katie Blizzard
Presenting documents for scholarly and public use is the primary purpose of The Papers of George Washington. Reviews further this purpose, and project members have found 169 such assessments published in traditional print as well as digital outlets between 1977 and 2018. Happily, the overwhelming consensus among reviewers is that the edition admirably serves its large intended audience.
Brig. Gen. Samuel Birch and the Ambiguity of the American Revolution
Katie Blizzard
In my opinion, one of the most interesting stories that began in an earlier volume of the Papers of George Washington is the career of Samuel Birch, a British officer who first appears in volume 20 of the Revolutionary War Series. Birch’s effort to capture Washington was certainly one of the more colorful episodes of the Revolutionary War, but I am also interested in Birch because his career vividly illustrates the many ironies of that complicated conflict.
A Cryptic Record of a Family Tragedy: The Unhappy Progression of Patsy Custis’s Epilepsy
Katie Blizzard
Wealth bought Patsy many luxuries: fine clothes and jewelry, a harpsicord and dancing lessons, excursions to Williamsburg, a pet parrot, and other pleasant things. It could not buy her good health, however. From a very early age, Patsy was afflicted with epilepsy. As she entered adolescence, the disease began to grow ominously worse, much to the distress of her family.
The Washington Papers: From Dissertation to Career
Katie Blizzard
George Washington has loomed large in my professional life, even though I only joined The Washington Papers’ full-time staff in 2017. This is because my work as an editorial assistant during graduate school on Presidential Series volumes 13 and 14 led me to my dissertation topic. One of Washington’s last great projects was founding the city named in his honor: the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C.
Fifty Years of The Washington Papers: A More Inclusive View
Katie Blizzard
Established in 2015 and funded by Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, the Martha Washington Papers and Washington Family Papers projects present a more inclusive view than what’s often shown in history textbooks. My fellow project editors and I hope we can contribute to the study of women’s history and of 18th- and 19th-century history in general.
Fifty Years of The Washington Papers: A Historical Overview
Katie Blizzard
In a proposal dated Oct. 18, 1966, Van Shreeven called for the publication of a comprehensive edition of the papers of George Washington. Not only was there a need for this sort of project (previous editions contained only Washington’s outgoing correspondence or selected incoming letters), but the American Revolutionary War Bicentennial promised interest and a favorable funding environment.