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OverviewUnited States Government publications are books collectors have not sought, bibliographers have not analyzed, historians have rarely considered. But publication is a necessary part of law-making and law-enforcing, and as the historian J. H. Powell traces national printing through its first forty years (until the British fired the capital in 1814) these dry-as-dust public documents become vivid, exciting elements in the lively story of how a new nation was built. In this volume collectors will find many ""firsts"" in public documents, bibliographers will discover unknown chapters in the history of printing in America, and historians will be challenged by the new points of view government publications suggest for interpreting national history. Lecture I describes the printing of the Continental Congress before Independence, 1774-1176. Lecture II deals with official publications during the Revolution, 1776-1787, the printing history of the Federal Convention of 1787, and public issues of the new government during its sojourn in New York and Philadelphia, 1789-1800. Lecture III describes publication problems in the new capital, Washington City, the printing contracts and contractors, the complex process of drafting and emitting the laws for a free people to know and understand. Books—even statutes, reports, debates, such books as a government makes—are bits of human history, each with a story of its own. As Dr. Powell makes clear in these lectures, which bring to light one of the largest, most important, but most neglected subjects in American Studies, the charm of any book comes partly from the men behind it, in this case men new to American history but bound to become familiar as the field opened up by these lectures is more thoroughly explored: Adolphus Washington Greely, the Polar explorer; Samuel A. Otis, the elegant Secretary of the Senate; Roger Chew Weightman, the boy printer in Washington; Clerk Beckley of the House whom the playing fields of Eton had prepared for Jeffersonian party battles; and the printers, the politicians, the civil and military servants of the government as it grew from small beginnings to what Hamilton finally described as—""majestic, efficient, and operative of great things."" Full Product DetailsAuthor: J. H. PowellPublisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Edition: Reprint 2016 Weight: 0.429kg ISBN: 9781512805826ISBN 10: 1512805823 Pages: 176 Publication Date: 29 January 1957 Audience: College/higher education , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationJ. H. Powell was Randolph Adams Memorial Lecturer at the University of Michigan, and received the A. S. W Rosenbach Fellowship in Bibliography at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the author of Richard Rush, also published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |