Publication Date

January 16, 2025

Perspectives Section

Features

AHA Topic

Research & Publications

This essay is part of “What Is Scholarship Today?

Documentary editors—those who gather, arrange, transcribe, annotate, index, and publish editions of writing created by an individual, group, or organization (often in multiple volumes or on an expansive digital scale)—have been stigmatized as second-class scholars who perform a vital but essentially clerical function. Keying texts for easier access is our principal accomplishment; it is work that demands diligence more than brilliance. Such views must be revised. When The Papers of George Washington is completed in an anticipated 94 volumes in 2028 after 60 years of effort, it will be an immense scholarly achievement.

I began on this project in 2006 and came to it after prior experience at The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (1992–2006) and The Salmon P. Chase Papers (1989–92). My current responsibilities as research associate professor and managing editor of The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia call for curiosity and a range of expertise. The documents that we edit cover politics, economics, diplomacy, the military, family relations, gender roles, slavery and race, material culture, art, theater, literature, agriculture, disease, transportation, and pretty much any field that has drawn scholarly endeavor. Providing accurate transcription and meaningful contextual annotation necessitates engagement with many sources—manuscript, printed primary and secondary, newspapers, journals, and genealogical records the most obvious. Accessing these sources efficiently requires familiarity with archival collections, books and databases, and material in the increasingly arcane realm of microformats (microfilm, microfiche, etc.). Another skill is evaluating maps, both for extracting relevant information and for aiding the project’s cartographer in drawing original maps for the volumes that blend documentary evidence with what is seen on those surviving from the past.

Editors gain both broad and deep knowledge of the archival record from the period.

The basic work of a modern documentary editor puts a premium on discipline. We follow guidelines for selection, arrangement, transcription, annotation, cross-referencing, and indexing to retain cohesion across individual volumes and the entire edition. In my work on Washington’s documentary record, I take reading cursive handwriting for granted, but that ability no longer can be assumed, and there is much debate as to whether artificial intelligence will sooner or later perform transcription with the same nuance and insight as a talented documentary editor. (I’m not optimistic.) Another scholarly attribute of many documentary editors is fluency in languages other than English. I lament that this is not among my competencies, and highly appreciate the help I have received from colleagues and students when confronted with non-English documents or sources.

A foremost goal of documentary editors is conveying findings from extensive research, especially through annotations. Annotation, in which we provide explanations for the content of the documents, reveals context and allows new perspectives. Editors must get to know the individuals who corresponded with their subjects and gain both broad and deep knowledge of the archival record from the period. For instance, George Washington’s few surviving letters written during the siege of Yorktown in the fall of 1781 give no sense of the sounds, smells, gore, emotions, and agony that were daily constants, or that the battleground included Black people, women, children, and the aged. Annotation with these letters from the documentary records of other officers (including Continental, French, British, and German), soldiers in the ranks, government officials, and civilians offers a fuller view of the environment and raises the question of why Washington chose to omit so much from his communications. In short, annotation tests an editor’s historical sensibilities and wherewithal.

Presenting a documentary record in a judiciously contextualized manner supplies a foundation for further research. Historians and biographers are only the most evident among those who use The Papers of George Washington. This project has informed documentary and popular films, news articles, opinion pieces, blog posts, and podcasts. The free accessibility of edited documents on Founders Online has promoted awareness and deployment, as has their availability on other digital platforms, notably Rotunda (the electronic imprint of the University of Virginia Press). The costs of letterpress publication and the need for a long-term institutional commitment, combined with the ready accessibility of digital formats, mean that The Papers of George Washington likely will be among the last comprehensive book editions initiated and completed on a large scale. The editors take seriously our commission to approach its creation as a scholarly work meant to benefit all interested in George Washington and his world for generations to come.

William M. Ferraro is research associate professor and managing editor of The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia.

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