This dramatic expansion of the venerable Evans and Shaw-Shoemaker digital collections of Early American Imprints adds more than 5,350 rare and unique printed documents, all catalogued by the American Antiquarian Society. For students and scholars of early American history, literature and culture, no other digital collection offers more comprehensive coverage of the Colonial and Early Republic periods. The materials cover a 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: Supplements from the American Antiquarian Society, 1652-1800, offers more than 750 primary sources, 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 an additional 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 and Shoemaker or were listed by them but could not be found.
Extensive indexing, easy browsing, full integration
Every item in Early American Imprints, Series I and II: Supplements from the American Antiquarian Society is catalogued, and MARC records are available. An essential complement to supplements from the Library Company of Philadelphia, these supplements are fully cross-searchable with all other America’s Historical Imprints collections to jumpstart research.
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 collection of books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, sheet music and graphic arts material printed 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.
