http://earlyamerica.com/
Reviewed: November 18, 2000
Mounted: December 10, 2000
By Joshua R. Greenberg
Trying not to pin itself down to one type of public history methodology, this site offers visitors a number of different opportunities for engaging the world of early America. Its content ranges from documents written by Tom Paine and maps of the United States in 1800 to interactive forums, crossword puzzles, and short documentary movies. While many of these sources are geared toward novices, there is also an attempt to appeal to a more academic historical audience. Archiving Early America also offers an online scholarly journal, The Early America Review, which provides original articles and reviews for more seasoned historians.
While this site tries to be many things to many people, it does stay relatively well-grounded as a documentary source for 18th and early-19th American history. Their mission statement even notes that "as you browse through these original documents, you will find it easier to understand America's early residents, those who shaped and created the early Republic." The site's documents are contained within their repository, the Early American Digital Library. The range of these documents is somewhat limited, however, as documents relating to the social lives of Americans in the era are clearly outnumbered by those connected to great political figures and events. For example, a section called "America's Freedom Documents" includes the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution. There are a number of more unique sources, such as scanned images of Ben Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette for January 2, 1750, or The Boston Gazette for Monday, October 7, 1776. Apart from textual documents, the Early American Digital Library also contains a collection of portraits and an assortment of maps, featuring battle maps from the Revolutionary War and views of Boston and other regions from the late 18th century.
Aside from the large document collection, the centerpiece of Archiving Early America is their online journal, The Early America Review: A Journal of Fact and Opinion On the People, Issues and Events Of 18th Century America. The journal is published irregularly, but has averaged about two or three editions a year, going back to Summer 1996. A number of interesting articles are featured in the most recent issue of the journal, including "The 1832 Cholera Epidemic In New York State" by G. William Beardslee and "Witchcraft, Religious Fanaticism and Schizophrenia-- Salem Revisited" by Thurman Sawyer and George Bundren.
This site is not just a text-based repository, however, and offers numerous chances for visitors, especially younger students of history, to engage documentary sources. Prominently displayed on the site's home page is a link to their movie index. Using the holdings of the Early American Digital Library, the site and its manager D.E. Vitale, have created short documentary movies (about 1.5 to 2.5 MB) that feature words and images of historical figures from George Washington to Molly Pitcher. These are particularly engaging to students solely familiar with the Ken Burns style of documentary film making. Another nice touch on the site is the small database of interactive historical crossword puzzles that can be played online or downloaded. Other nice options on earlyamerica.com include The Early America Email Discussion Group and The Town Crier, an interactive forum for "educators, historians, students, researchers and journalists with one common interest: Early America."
The majority of documentary content on the site is held in the Digital Library and is of great clarity and quality. As most of this content is geared toward a younger audience, much of it does not contain the best citation trail (mostly a problem for more senior academics) or thorough context. This is very notable in the short films. The Molly Pitcher short, for example, features some dialogue read behind a procession of period images of Pitcher during the Battle of Monmouth. Missing from the credits, however, are a citation for the text and full citations for the images. While the film engages its audience on a fascinating character from the American Revolution, it fails to fulfill its role as a completely useful research tool. Also, while the Town Crier interactive forum allows for history buffs, students, and scholars to debate historical issues, it is not tightly refereed for the accuracy of its submissions.
One thing Archiving Early America has in its favor is that content concerning the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Phillis Wheatley always seems to be timely. Young students will be using the internet to find information on these founding figures and their creations, like the Constitution, and this site offers an engaging and credible way for them to access it. However, the ability of The Early America Review, the site's online journal, to become a lasting and useful academic publication is certainly a question. In its first few years, the journal has not been able to keep to a set publication schedule and did not even have an issue in 1999. They have been able to secure articles from a few notable historians, such as University of Maryland Professor James Henretta, but the number of repeat authors within the first few volumes does not say much for their ability to obtain a range of quality submissions. Without building this journal into a more viable publication, the site may lose a number of its more academic visitors.
For the most part, the site is easy to navigate and setup to draw visitors to its most popular aspects: The Early American Review, Digital Library, and film index. They have also done a nice job of making scanned documents easy to read, allowing for the audience to really engage these pieces from the past. One nice touch in the way that documents are presented on Archiving Early America is that they are almost always offered as either scanned images or transcribed text. This gives the visitor the option of quick access to the words in a document or viewing it closer to its original state. This little touch enables to documents to be seen as both usable resources and part of the history they detail. One comment this reviewer will make is that he had trouble loading the home page (with a 56k modem) on a number of occasions. Viewing the short films was painless however, and the majority of maps and portrait images loaded quickly.
On the whole, Archiving Early America is an engaging site for students of late 18th and early 19th century America. Its commitment to using documentary sources in order to instruct students should be commended, even if it does not utilize these materials enough to satisfy more senior scholars. While the content in The Early America Review is certainly geared toward to higher education students and scholars, the site's priorities are clearly to reach out to younger audiences and more novice students. One of the most useful pages for this function is entitled, "How To Read A 200-Year-Old Document and Other FAQs," that informs visitors, for example, how to deal with the use of that pesky 18th century "f" instead of our modern "s". It is with good reason that the site has received positive reviews from WIRED magazine, The Seattle Times, and USA TODAY Online.
More information on PHRC's rating system is available.
Joshua R. Greenberg is a Ph.D. candidate in History at American University. His dissertation is entitled "Advocating 'the Man': Masculinity, Organized Labor, and the Market Revolution in New York, 1800-1840." He has also contributed to the Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century and Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia.
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