About the Project
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin is a collaborative undertaking by
a team of scholars at Yale University to collect, edit, and publish the
writings and papers of one of America's most remarkable founding fathers
and indeed one of the most extraordinary people this nation has ever
produced. His ever-curious and inventive mind explored nearly every aspect
of his world, both pragmatic and theoretical, and he corresponded with an
astonishing range of men and women of all classes and nearly all
professions in America, Great Britain, and Europe. In a life spanning from
1706 to 1790, his collected papers present a panoramic view of the
eighteenth century.
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin was established in 1954 under the
joint auspices of Yale University and the
American Philosophical Society and
was supported first by a generous gift from Life Magazine and
subsequently by numerous grants from individuals, foundations, and two
government agencies (the National Historical
Publications and Records Commission and the National Endowment for the Humanities). The
project has enjoyed longstanding and generous support from the Packard
Humanities Institute through Founding Fathers Papers, Inc., the Florence
Gould Foundation, The Cinco Hermanos
Fund, and The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Major underwriting also has been provided by Yale University, Richard
Gilder, Charles and Ann Johnson, Mason Willrich,
the Yale Class of 1954, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary.
The Friends of Franklin
also help to sustain the enterprise. Thirty-nine volumes have been
published to date. The entire edition is projected to reach 47 volumes and
will publish in full or in abbreviated form the total corpus of Franklin's
approximately 30,000 extant papers.
One of the most successful examples of collaborative scholarship in the
humanities, the Franklin edition is recognized around the world as an
example of the highest of American scholarly achievements. One French reviewer noted, "Une fois de plus, les universitaires
américains nous éblouissent." (Once again, American academics
dazzle us.) An American reviewer said of the edition, "Its subject is
important; its coverage is breathtakingly comprehensive; its editorial
protocols are of the highest quality; its annotations are erudite and
insightful; its indexing is very useful . . . . This is the gold standard
in scholarly editing, and a genuine ornament of American letters."
A digital version of the Franklin
Papers, created and maintained by the Packard Humanities Institute (PHI)
and previously available to scholars and researchers on a CD-ROM, is now
available to the public with an Introduction by Edmund S. Morgan. This digital edition includes texts of
the published papers and unverified, rough transcriptions of the
as-yet-unpublished material. The
rough transcriptions will be replaced with verified texts as future volumes
of the Franklin Papers are published.
The texts are fully searchable and they are indexed by volume, name
of correspondent, and date. The
digital edition does not include our editorial headnotes
and footnotes. It does, however,
contain biographical sketches of all Franklin's correspondents, written
exclusively for this database, and it provides translations of some of the
French documents.
The digital Benjamin Franklin
project was conceived and designed by David W. Packard, whose vision,
expertise and generosity are wholly responsible for making Franklin's
writings freely available on the internet.
It is the product of a collaboration initiated in 1988 between the
Packard Humanities Institute and The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
under the editorship of Barbara Oberg.
Many Franklin Papers editors and assistants at Yale have contributed
to the project over the past fifteen years.
We are pleased to acknowledge them here: Barbara Oberg, Ellen Cohn,
Marilyn Morris, Karen Duval (who oversaw the translation project), Jonathan
Dull, Kate Ohno, Leslie Lindenauer,
Judith Adkins, Darcy Fryer, and Michael Sletcher. Transcribers, editorial assistants, and
research assistants include: Sandra
M. Allaire, Alicia K. Anderson, Patricia
Armstrong, Catherine Boumkwo-Baneni, Blair G. Darney, Libby Garland, Nadine R. Honigberg,
Owen Hughes, Karen Kauffman, Natalie S. LeSueur,
Bryan Loder, Aidan McGlaize,
Carter Wills McKenzie, Jennifer Macellaro,
Elizabeth Morris, Francesca Penisi, Lisbeth Shepherd, and Joanne Walroth.. Translators include Chimene
Bateman, Liselotte M. Davis, Christophe
LeSueur, Larry Lopez, Lauren Pinzka,
Jeremy Sabol, and Alyson Waters. We thank the dedicated staff at PHI who
worked on the project: Stephen V. F. Waite, Wilkins Poe, Patricia Doherty,
and David W. Packard; Brigitte Comparini also
provided expert assistance.
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