“American State Papers, 1789-1838 contains almost every legislative document of the first 50 years of U.S. history. It is an excellent complement to the U.S. Congressional Serial Set, 1817-1980, the House and Senate Journals, Series 1, 1789-1817 and the Senate Executive Journals, Series 1, 1789-1866. It provides a rich source of primary material on a wide range of topics in early American history. American State Papers is cross-searchable with all the other collections in Readex’s Archive of Americana. It will open new horizons for researchers, as it makes this primary material available to much larger audiences. It will be of great value for political scientists and historians and will serve a wide range of academic disciplines, as it will foster new interpretations of life and events in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
— Norman Desmarais, Acquisitions Librarian, Providence College, in Reference Reviews (2008)
American State Papers is “… an extensive archive of U.S. history documents, offering roughly 6,300 publications. The archive provides access to every Congressional and Executive document of the first 14 U.S. Congresses, and additional coverage through the 25th Congress, as well as tables, maps, charts and other illustrations. The collection is particularly strong in military history, with 205 documents about military bases and posts and 134 on military construction. Other documents address topics such as westward expansion, Native American affairs and issues surrounding slavery. This collection also includes numerous speeches and messages by Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Users can browse the archive by category: Subjects, Publication Category, Standing-Committee Author, Document Class, and Congress. Simple and advanced searches are available, enabling easy access into this large collection of documents. For those with access, this site is a valuable resource for researching the government and military in the early United States.”
— History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web
“This collection includes all legislative and executive branch documents from the first 25 U.S. Congresses—some 40,000 digitized pages of content covering 6,000 publications. Originally divided into 10 document classes (e.g., foreign relations, military affairs, public lands), the documents are digitized from the original printed volumes, published 1832-61. From the main search page, users may enter keywords in a search box. The default search field is set to ‘citation text.’ Researchers may also browse by subject (e.g., armed forces and conflict, food and agriculture, personal names), publication category, congressional committee, or the original ten document classes, or by Congress. The advanced search function lets users combine searches in different fields and limit by date.
“Searching within documents is easy—search terms appear highlighted over the digitized text. Citations include hyperlinked subjects, allowing greater access to other relevant documents. The My Collection features permit users to save documents during the search session with the ability to e-mail the materials. Researchers will be impressed with the clarity of the documents and images. A zoom feature is available to enlarge documents with the option to download in either PDF or JPG format. Librarians will like the fact that the database is open-URL compliant and supports federated searching. … Summing up: highly recommended.”
— Joe Hardenbrook, Library Instruction Coordinator & Research/Instruction Librarian, Staley Library, Millikin University in Choice (January 2006)