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The “Notes and Documents” section of the William and Mary Quarterly has been a regular feature of the journal since it shifted its focus from the study of Virginia to a consideration of “the entire field of early American history, institutions, and culture,” a “broadening of horizons” that occurred with the beginning of the Third Series in 1944 (“Historical News: The Quarterly’s Third Series,” WMQ, 3d ser., 1, no. 1 [January 1944]: 91–92). The section generally contains two kinds of pieces: those concentrating upon or introducing a primary document (usually a new archival discovery) and Research Notes, which are short articles, narrower in scope and more focused in their scholarly contribution than the usual article. The Research Note, though, has primarily been the domain for document-based historians.

The Quarterly will continue to publish both primary documents of broad interest and Research Notes of the familiar type, and I encourage both kinds of submissions. Yet a similar format should be available to scholars using art, material objects, archaeological evidence, or other kinds of sources to investigate the early American past. Just as the introduction to a Notes and Documents piece places an archival find in its historical context and connects the document to significant questions in current historical inquiry, so might a short essay present and interpret a new archaeological find, an understudied text, or a forgotten artifact. In 2008, volume 65 in the Third Series, therefore, WMQ will broaden the methodological and disciplinary horizons of the Notes and Documents section by renaming it “Sources and Interpretations” and encouraging submissions to it that are not just document based. This renaming, discussed by the Quarterly’s Editorial Board at its May 2007 meeting, formalizes and continues to encourage the efforts to broaden the entire journal’s scope—efforts that did not begin with the current editor or even the previous one and that reflect the growth and development of the field. Neither an introduction to a primary source nor a short, stand-alone interpretive essay should exceed 6,000 words, excluding notes. (The maximum word count for regular articles, excluding notes, is 10,000.)

The interdisciplinary—or perhaps multidisciplinary—character of early American historical studies was evident at the Omohundro Institute’s Thirteenth Annual Conference, held in Williamsburg on June 7–10, 2007, in conjunction with the Fifth Biennial Conference of the Society of Early Americanists. The joint megaconference brought literary scholars and historians together in seventy sessions stretching over four hot Virginia summer days. Part of the conference was held at the Jamestown archaeological site, bringing yet another set of methodologies and disciplinary practices into the discussion.

A “broadening of horizons” of another sort occurred at the remarkable Omohundro Institute conference in Ghana on August 8–12, 2007: “The bloody Writing is for ever torn”: Domestic and International Consequences of the First Governmental Efforts to Abolish the Atlantic Slave Trade. Although Book Review Editor Karin Wulf and I served on the conference committee, even reviewing all the proposals and helping to shape the conference program did not prepare us for the rich multiplicity of perspectives on slavery, the slave trade, and abolition afforded by the conference itself. Eventually, selected papers from this conference will become a large special issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. This material will take Quarterly readers beyond the journal’s usual geographic and chronological boundaries, but it will be worth the trip.

At their May meeting, the Quarterly Editorial Board awarded the following prizes:

“Nindoodemag: The Significance of Algonquian Kinship Networks in the Eastern Great Lakes Region, 1600–1701” by Heidi Bohaker (January) was chosen as the recipient of the 2006 Richard L. Morton Award. The award is given to the best article by a graduate student; it carries a prize of one hundred dollars' worth of books selected by the author from the Institute's list. Committee members described the article as "rich" and "methodologically innovative." One noted, "Bohaker is breaking new ground in her use of kinship, tribal histories, and linguistic evidence." The article not only revises what has become conventional wisdom from Richard White's The Middle Ground about the shattered world of late-seventeenth-century Algonquian people but also offers "suggestions for better ways to write the history of kinship networks in the Great Lakes by using new sources."

The Lester A. Cappon Award for the best article in 2006 was awarded to Michael A. McDonnell, "Class War? Class Struggle during the American Revolution in Virginia" (April). One board member wrote the following: "Taking on an old topic, the notion of class conflict during the American Revolution, McDonnell brings new and vital evidence to our understanding of the coming of the Revolution in Virginia. Focusing on the willingness of white Virginia males to serve in the militia, McDonnell exposes numerous fissures and controversies dividing the white population and weakening their support for the war. Ultimately, McDonnell casts doubt on Edmund Morgan's view that slavery and racism provided the common basis for white resistance to Britain. As McDonnell shows, the issue of slavery could divide whites as well as unify them." Another member "found this a fascinating turn on a subject that has been covered exhaustively. The piece opens up a much needed discussion of the importance of class in a scholarly area dominated, understandably, by issues of race and slavery. His depiction of the social instability at the base of Virginia's revolutionary society casts a new light on what was at stake in the 1770s." In addition to the honor, Professor McDonnell received a cash prize of $500.

Chris Grasso
Editor, William and Mary Quarterly