Courtesy American Antiquarian Society On November 29, 1773, a group of concerned Bostonians met in Boston’s Old South Meeting House to discuss how to deal with the ships just arrived from London laden with tea to be sold by the East India Company under the terms of Great Britain’s Tea Act. The act sought to accomplish three objectives. First, the… Read More
As the fall semester at W&M winds to a close, we at the Omohundro Institute are particularly grateful for the work of the OI Editorial Apprentices. The decades-long program introduces entering graduate students to the practices of scholarly publishing and historical editing. Each year, students participate in… Read More
“My Will is that none of the Pictures of what Sort Soever be Removed out of my Dwelling Hall.” With those words, Henry Custis (ca. 1677-1733) of Northampton County, Virginia clearly stated his intention that the family portraits (and any other pictures) should remain with his house in perpetuity. Custis would be disappointed that neither his house nor his… Read More
The Georgian Papers Programme (GPP) is a 10-year transatlantic collaboration to digitize, share, and interpret more than 425,000 pages relating to the Georgian period (1714–1837) from the Royal Archives and Royal Library at Windsor Castle. The ultimate goal of the Programme is to provide… Read More
Emily Sackett was awarded an OI–Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation fellowship in spring 2019. She spent the month of September 2019 in residence at the Omohundro Institute and conducted extensive research in the collections at Jamestown Island. The OI offers numerous short-term fellowships for scholars—from advanced graduate students… Read More
Today’s post accompanies “Creating the Fourth Amendment,” episode 261 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. The image of a victorious and weary George Washington retiring to Mount Vernon after eight long years of battle and war is… Read More
Today’s post accompanies “Creating the First Ten Amendments,” episode 260 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. Last week as I was listening to Ben Franklin’s World, I was struck by the way in which Liz Covart and… Read More
Molly O’Hagan Hardy’s article “Archives-Based Digital Projects in Early America” appeared in the July 2019 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly. If this article succeeds, it is because the composition of it, like the projects it describes, are the result of back and forth, give and take, what we often call “collaborative” production but which often feels more… Read More
Today’s post accompanies “American Legal History and the Bill of Rights,” episode 259 of Ben Franklin’s World and part of Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment. In 1965 a lawyer named Malcolm S. Mason wrote an article for the Journal of Legal Education with a simple problem: legal history was boring. For Mason, who… Read More
Bibliography for Doing History 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment Want to learn more about the Bill of Rights and the Fourth Amendment? We’ve compiled a list of suggested books, articles, popular blog posts, and online resources that you might find helpful. We either used these works ourselves for production research or they were suggested by our guests. Happy researching!… Read More
“Doing History 4 Legal Lexicon; or A Useful List of Terms You Might Not Know” We are pleased to announce the release of “Doing History, Season 4: Understanding the Fourth Amendment.” Law is all around us. This 4-part Doing History series explains the early American origins and importance of the fourth amendment. Although it doesn’t always make headlines as… Read More