This dramatic expansion of the venerable Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker digital collections of Early American Imprints makes available more than 5,350 rare and unique early American printed documents, all catalogued by the American Antiquarian Society. For today’s students and scholars of early American history, literature and culture, no other collections offer the opportunity to view and search newly available publications spanning the Colonial and Early Republic periods. The materials cover a wide range of imprint types: captivity narratives, criminal confessions, expedition logs, government acts, histories, maps, military records, musical compositions, personal narratives, poetry, regional histories, short stories, songs, speeches, training manuals, treaties and others.
Early American Imprints, Series I: Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society, 1652-1800, offers more than 750 previously unavailable imprints, most of which were not included in either Charles Evans’ monumental work, or Roger Bristol’s supplemental bibliography. Early American Imprints, Series II: Supplement from the American Antiquarian Society, 1801-1819, provides more than 1,500 imprints that fall into the scope of Ralph R. Shaw and Richard H. Shoemaker's “American Bibliography.” Many of these were either missed by Shaw-Shoemaker, or were listed by them but could not be found until now.
Extensive indexing, easy browsing, full integration
Every item in Early American Imprints, Series I and II: Supplements from the American Antiquarian Society, 1652-1819, is catalogued, and MARC records are available. All three Supplements are essential complements to previous Supplements from the Library Company of Philadelphia, and all are fully integrated into America’s Historical Imprints for easy browsing and cross-searching.
In partnership with the American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is both a learned society and a major independent research library. The AAS library houses the largest and most accessible collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, sheet music, and graphic arts material printed from first contact through 1876 in what is now the United States, Canada, and the West Indies. The library contains more than two-thirds of all known imprints created in America before 1821, making it the single greatest repository of such materials in the world.
