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Review
| Archive of Americana, by Readex, a division of NewsBank. <www.readex.com>, 2005. Yearly subscription for high schools, $625-$2,500. Permanent acquisition for academic institutions also available. Contact <sales@readex.com> for free trial.
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| The Archive of Americana consists of digitized copies of the myriad of books, pamphlets and other imprints listed in Early American Imprints, Series One: Evans, 1639–1800 and Early American Imprints, Series Two: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801–1819. This two series collection contains every available book, pamphlet and broadside printed in America from 1639–1819. These imprints include a cornucopia of hard to find research possibilities from the 17th to the early 19th centuries including academic dissertations, advertisements, ballads, gazetteers, sermons, geographical atlases, cookbooks, travel literature and slave narratives. |
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The Early American Newspaper, Series One 1690–1876 permits searching or browsing in hundreds of newspapers from twenty-four states and Washington DC. The states represented consist of most of the southern and northern United States along with Ohio and Indiana. The U.S. Congressional Serial Set 1817–1980 allows the viewer to search or browse many of the reports, documents and journals originally published by Congress. |
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These early American imprints and newspapers along with the U.S. Congressional serial sets allow both the student and teacher a plethora of research possibilities. Many topic searches can be expanded due to the possibility of record linkage between the different sets. In addition to traditional avenues and topics of inquiry the Archive of Americana runs the gamut. It offers such esoteric sources as imprints of 19th century medical history dissertations like "The Use of Mercury in Fevers," "The Influence of Music in the Cure of Diseases," and "The Medical Uses of Opium," as well as the more commonly researched areas of interest such as Congressional Reports on battles, wars, Indian treatment and slave insurrections. In addition to regional perspective, the digitized newspaper access allows the researcher to investigate various events, trends and ideas over time. These newspapers also provide occasional foreign perspectives on a variety of stateside events. (An example of student use of these resources at can be viewed at <www.primaryresearch.org>.) |
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Readex has done an impressive job of streamlining the very difficult task of searching historical documents. So often the standard spellings that are taken for granted are not consistent in these primary sources. There have been initiatives made to allow for this in the search process in the Archive. There is a drop-down menu for Boolean searching as well as a very comprehensive searching tutorial that outlines the process that is a valuable tool for searching in any context. Searches can be organized in several fashions. One can search a single periodical, a geographic area, a series of dates, one of the collections or the entire Archive. Search results can be formatted by relevance (how many time and how close together a keyword appears) or date. The collection also offers a drop-down menu of viewing controls concerning size or format. There are easy printing and downloading options as well as citations and citation guides. The number of options can seem daunting at first, but once mastered they allow for a comfortable ease in searching. For those who prefer to use the browsing options, Readex has developed thorough indexes by genre, subject, author, history of printing, place of publication and language. It is easy to lose track of time when meandering through the richness of these resources. |
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The Archive of Americana is thus an invaluable research aid that can help students understand history through a broad array of contemporaneous perspectives ranging from regional to international. These perspectives should allow students to develop and use the critical thinking skills that are necessary for understanding historical interpretation and context, as well as the conditions that create historical events. Readex and The American Antiquarian Society should be commended for their creation of the Archive of Americana. It is a major breakthrough in research because it has opened the archival gates to a new generation of eager high school historians. |
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W. Dean Eastman and Barbara Skaryd Fecteau |
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