Early American Imprints, Series I

Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800, has been hailed as the definitive resource for teaching and researching nearly every aspect of 17th- and 18th-century America. This incomparable digital collection contains virtually every book, pamphlet and broadside published in the United States over a 160-year period. Providing complete digital editions of nearly 38,000 printed works, Series I offers an incomparable glimpse into culture, politics and literature of the period before, during, and after the nation’s founding.

Wide-ranging teaching and research applications
Each of the printed works in Series I is expertly indexed, allowing researchers at all levels to jumpstart research and quickly navigate results by genre, subject, author, history of printing, place of publication or language. Major subjects include economics and trade, government, health, historic events, labor, languages, law and crime, literature, military, peoples, philosophy, politics, religion, science and technology, society, manners and customs, and theology.

Subject areas may be further refined by dozens of relevant topics. Under the subject heading, “Historic Events,” for example, researchers are one click away from primary sources on King Philip’s War, the Boston Massacre and the Whiskey Rebellion. Within “Politics,” researchers will find links to works on abolition, corruption, election law, nationalism, refugees, suffrage and many other frequently researched topics. Other in-depth topics include agriculture, capital punishment, child rearing, commerce, diseases, education, foreign affairs, Native Americans, medicine, military operations, religion, the institution of slavery, temperance, trials, witchcraft, women and hundreds more.

Every genre of literature from the 17th and 18th centuries
Early American Imprints, Series I features a breadth of genres printed by early Americans. Among them are advertisements, allegories, almanacs, autobiographies, ballads, bibles, captivity narratives, cookbooks, diaries, elegies, eulogies, hymns, imaginary voyages, narratives, novels, operas, plays, poems, primers, sermons, songs, speeches, textbooks, tracts, travel literature and many others.

Based on renowned bibliographies
Early American Imprints, Series I, is based on Charles Evans’ renowned American Bibliography and Roger Bristol’s critical supplement. Along with Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819—the essential complement to Series I—Readex offers a range of additional imprints in supplemental collections.