American
Notes: Travels in America
This collection comprises 253 published narratives by
Americans and foreign visitors recounting their travels
in the colonies and the United States and their observations
and opinions about American peoples, places, and society
from about 1750 to 1920.
Among the collection's American Revolution-era books
are:
The
American Revolution and Its Era: Maps and Charts of North
America and the West Indies
The maps and charts in this collection number well over
two thousand different items, with easily as many or more
unnumbered duplicates, many with distinct colorations
and annotations. Almost six hundred maps are original
manuscript drawings.
An
American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and
Other Printed Ephemera
The Printed Ephemera Collection at the Library of Congress
is a rich repository of Americana. In total, the collection
comprises 28,000 primary source items dating from the
seventeenth century to the present and encompassing key
events and eras in U.S. history, including the American
Revolution.
Examples of broadsides from the American Revolution include:
- A broadside titled "No
Stamped Paper to be had" reports a variety
of colonial efforts intended to force the repeal of
the hated Stamp Act of 1765.
- An account of the Boston
Massacre printed in 1770.
- A copy of the Boston
Port Act as passed by the British Parliament in
March 1774, which closed Boston Harbor.
The
Capital and the Bay: Narratives of Washington and the Chesapeake
Bay Region
This collection comprises 139 books selected from the
Library of Congress's General Collections and two books
from its Rare Book and Special Collections Division. It
includes first-person narratives, early histories, historical
biographies, promotional brochures, and books of photographs.
Among the collection's American Revolution-era books
are:
A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional
Documents and Debates
This collection contains the records of Congress from
1774 to 1875, including journals, debates, bills, and
laws. The Journals
of the Continental Congress and Letters
of Delegates to Congress can be researched
to examine the role of the Continental Congress during
the American Revolution.
Highlights from the American Revolution in this collection
include the following:
Documents
from the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention
The Continental Congress Broadside Collection (256 titles)
and the Constitutional Convention Broadside Collection
(21 titles) contain 277 documents relating to the work
of Congress and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.
Items include extracts of the journals of Congress, resolutions,
proclamations, committee reports, treaties, and early
printed versions of the Declaration
of Independence and the preliminary
articles of peace ending the Revolutionary War.
This collection also includes a timeline
of the American Revolution and the essay "To
Form a More Perfect Union".
Early
Virginia Religious Petitions
Presents images of 423 petitions submitted to the Virginia
legislature between 1774 and 1802 from more than eighty
counties and cities. Drawn from the Library of Virginia's
Legislative Petitions collection, the petitions concern
such topics as the historic debate over the separation
of church and state championed by James Madison and Thomas
Jefferson, the rights of dissenters such as Quakers and
Baptists, the sale and division of property in the established
church, and the dissolution of unpopular vestries.
First
American West: The Ohio River Valley
Consists of 15,000 pages of original historical material
documenting the land, peoples, exploration, and transformation
of the trans-Appalachian West from the mid-eighteenth
to the early nineteenth century. The collection is drawn
from the holdings of the University of Chicago Library
and the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky.
George
Washington Papers at the Library of Congress
The complete George Washington Papers collection from
the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress consists
of approximately 65,000 documents. This is the largest
collection of original Washington documents in the world.
Document types in the collection include correspondence,
letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial
account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated
by Washington from 1741 through 1799. The collection includes
a timeline
of Washington's service during the American Revolution.
Highlights from the American Revolution in the Washington
Papers include the following:
The
James Madison Papers
The Madison Papers consist of approximately 12,000 items
captured in some 72,000 digital images. They document
the life of the man who came to be known as the "Father
of the Constitution" through correspondence, personal
notes, drafts of letters and legislation, an autobiography,
legal and financial documents, and miscellaneous manuscripts.
The collection includes a timeline
that examines Madison's career during the American Revolution.
The Madison Papers include the following documents from
the American Revolution:
The
Rochambeau Map Collection
Contains cartographic items used by Jean Baptiste Donatien
de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725-1807), when he was
commander-in-chief of the French expeditionary army (1780-82)
during the American Revolution. The maps cover much of
eastern North America and date from 1717 to 1795.
The
Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
Jefferson's papers consist of approximately 27,000 documents
ranging in date from 1606 to 1827. Correspondence, memoranda,
notes, and drafts of documents make up two-thirds of the
collection. Jefferson's activities as a delegate to the
second Continental Congress, his drafting of the Declaration
of Independence in June-July 1776, and his service as
governor of Virginia, 1779-81, are well documented. The
collection includes a timeline
of Jefferson's activities during the years 1774 to 1783.
Highlights from the American Revolution in this collection
include the following:
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