Shift #13 - Collections Research
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 | 8:30-10 pm CST/9:30-11 pm EST (1.5 hrs)
Details
Michelle Hurt, student/intern
Jennifer Gonzalez, practicum supervisor
This is a screenshot of the collection, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates 1774-1875. While this collection only has 40 items, it is rich with information about the early days of the U.S. government.
Even though I have my topic secured - writing about pirates - I knew that I still had plenty of time to do my research around that so I wanted to take some time to get to know other collections at the Law Library. I received my bachelor's degree in political science over twenty years ago so my knowledge of early U.S. politics is quite hazy. I picked this collection, A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation, to brush up on my knowledge, especially as the last 5-10 years have been very politically heated in our country. I think it is very important to know of and learn about the past so that we (as a society) can act and behave accordingly, and not to make the same mistakes that our forefathers made. This collection has 5 different categories: 1) Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, 2) Statutes and Documents, 3) Journals of Congress, 4) Debates of Congress and 5) Century Presentations. I started with the first category and admittedly, I had to look up what the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention were (my knowledge and memory of political science is that rusty). Within the first category, there are four sub-categories: Journals of the Continental Congress, Letters of Delegates to Congress, Elliot's Debates and Farrand's Records.
I began with the Journals of the Continental Congress, which included items of regular sessions that Congress had plus actual ordinances they passed and reports and letters they sent between them and other groups (like states and foreign powers). As I looked through some of the journals, I found it amazing that amidst the possibility of war (the American Revolution), these men took such precious notes of their proceedings, not realizing how much of an impact it would have on culture and future generations. I also wondered where the original documents were stored and how they were safeguarded. I noticed that the beginning of the journal, there is a recording of each state's representatives and the actions they took. For example, the State of New York was a small section at the beginning of the journal showing their selection of delegates from different counties, which is different from Delaware specifically stating their grievances against Britain. I then moved onto the Letters of Delegates to Congress, which is in the process of being digitized but thankfully I could view an archived version. Part of the Letters is a foreword with a quote from James Madison who said, "What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty & Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support." I appreciated this, because it shows that our founding fathers held education in high regard (although, as we can see in history, not everyone had access to it).
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