PMVB Project Publishes Series 1 Documents

Note: In Jan. 2019, the editors reorganized the documents, which resulted in the reclassifying of the documents noted below into Series 5. URLs were updated to reflect this change.

The Papers of Martin Van Buren project at Cumberland University recently published its first series of 634 documents. These documents, which encompass the period of 1 January 1825–3 March 1829, witnessed the conclusion of Van Buren's career in the U.S. Senate, his brief gubernatorial tenure in New York, and his appointment as Andrew Jackson's secretary of state. Other topics of interest include New York politics, southern politics, and the formation of the Jacksonian Democratic party.

“Since the project officially began in February 2016, the publication of this first series of documents has been a major goal,” said Mark Cheathem, PMVB project director and history professor at Cumberland University. “This accomplishment represents thousands of hours of work by staff, volunteers, and, most importantly, Cumberland University students.”

The digital version of the Van Buren papers will make about 13,000 documents that belonged to the eighth president accessible. The documents can be found at vanburenpapers.org.

The Papers of Martin Van Buren project is sponsored by Cumberland University and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and is produced in partnership with the Center for Digital Editing at the University of Virginia.