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The Project
The Papers of George Washington, a grant-funded project, was established in 1969 at the University of Virginia, under the joint auspices of the University and the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, to publish a comprehensive edition of Washington's correspondence.
Letters written to Washington as well as letters and documents written by him will eventually be published in the complete edition that will consist of approximately 90 volumes. Fifty-two volumes are now finished.
The new edition is supported financially by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, as well as the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association and the University of Virginia. The staff spent much of the first ten years of the project's life collecting Washington documents from repositories and private owners worldwide.
The 135,000 Washington documents now deposited in photographic form in the project's offices represent one of the richest collections of American historical manuscripts extant. There is almost no facet of research on life and enterprise in the late colonial and early national periods that will not be enhanced by material from these documents. The publication of Washington's papers will make this source material available not only to scholars but to all Americans interested in the founding of their nation.
The Volumes
The correspondence volumes of The Papers of George Washington, 1748–1799, published in five series, include not only Washington's own letters and other papers but also all letters written to him. The ten-volume Colonial Series (1744–1775) takes Washington through his command of the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War and then focuses on his political and business activities as a Virginia planter during the fifteen years before the Revolution. The massive Revolutionary War Series (1775–1783) presents in documents and annotations the myriad military and political matters with which Washington dealt during the long war. The papers for his years at Mount Vernon after leaving the army and before becoming president have been published in a six-volume Confederation Series (1784–1788). The remaining years of Washington's life are covered in the Presidential Series (1788–1797), which includes the papers of his two presidential administrations, and the Retirement Series (1797–1799), which includes his correspondence after his final return to Mount Vernon.
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