Update for A Century of Lawmaking Now Available on American Memory

[Danna Bell-Russel]

Good morning,

We are proud to announce this latest addition to the American Memory
collections available online. Please accept any apologies for any
duplicate postings.


"A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents
and Debates, 1774-1873"
Records of the First 42 Federal Congresses Document the Nation's First
Century

A comprehensive record of the first hundred years of American
self-government will soon be available in an updated online collection
from the Library of Congress.

Beginning with the Continental Congress in 1774, America’s national
legislative bodies have kept records of their proceedings. On September
17, 2000, Constitution Day, the National Digital Library Program in
cooperation with the Law Library of Congress will provide unprecedented
electronic access to the historic journals and debates of Congress from
1774 to 1873. The Web site A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S.
Congressional Documents and Debates (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amlaw/)
will offer more than 500,000 digital items, including page images and
searchable text.

In 1998, as part of the National Digital Library Program, the Library of
Congress began to make the first of these proceedings available online.
With this update, the collection will contain more than 400 original
volumes. The journals, debates, and legislation of the federal
congresses from 1789 to 1873 form the core of the collection, including
the House Journal, Senate Journal and Senate Executive Journal, Annals
of Congress, Register of Debates, The Congressional Globe, and the
Statutes at Large. The site also offers documents on the Continental
Congress and constitutional debates (1774-89) in the Journals of the
Continental Congress, Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of
1787 and The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of
the Federal Constitution (Elliot's Debates), as well as selected
documents from the U.S. Serial Set.

"The Law Library is gratified to be able to make this important
collection available," said Rubens Medina, Law Librarian of Congress.
"The result of more than three years of work, this update will be a boon
to all students and researchers of the history of the first hundred
years of the Congress."

The hundreds of legislative volumes are a treasure trove of information
on a wide variety of subjects in the history of the United States and of
the U.S. Congress, such as the growth of the republic, the conflict over
slavery, and the addition of states to the Union. This collection also
includes documents on treaties with other countries and information on
trade and economic issues of importance to the young nation. Of special
interest are the smaller stories of widows requesting pensions, towns
requesting post offices, and tributes to notable Americans at the times
of their deaths. Students of genealogy as well as history will find the
collection a boon to their research.

Future updates to A Century of Lawmaking will include volumes from 1774
to 1873 that supplement the existing collection, such as the Letters of
Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, the American State Papers, House and
Senate bills and resolutions, and additional selected documents from the
U.S. Serial Set. The final collection will include a group of historic
volumes from the Law Library of Congress documenting important trials
regarding slavery and a collection of historic volumes, constitutions,
and charters for Native American tribes.

Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll at loc.gov.