Cornell's Making of America digital library

[Sprowls]

Recently, I've been exploring the Making of America(MOA) project
and think its a great resource for Civil War history researchers.
The project is actually a collaboration between Cornell University
and the University of Michigan. To find a browsing list of 19th century
journals and books, including the * Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion and * The War of the
Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies, visit the following web site:

http://moa.cit.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html

Chuck Sprowls

[col90]

Re: Cornell's Making of America digital library

May I invite you to check out my website? It was created for a class dealing with Information Access in the Humanities, and contains links to sites known to be useful for scholarly research (such as both of the MOA sites), not just general information areas:

http://www.geocities.com/col90/civilwar.html

[Sprowls]

Re: Cornell's Making of America digital library

That's a great compilation of online resources.
Thanks for sharing!


Chuck Sprowls

May I invite you to check out my website? It was created for a class dealing with Information Access in the Humanities, and contains links to sites known to be useful for scholarly research (such as both of the MOA sites), not just general information areas:

http://www.geocities.com/col90/civilwar.html

[markj]

Another reason to use the "Making of America" site

Amazing story: This guy just dug up this baseball reference while surfing on "MoA!"

Now Pittsfield Stakes Claim to Baseball's Origins

New York Times, May 12, 2004
By FRANK LITSKY

PITTSFIELD, Mass., May 11 - A generation ago, the popular belief was that baseball was invented in 1839 in Cooperstown, N.Y., by Abner Doubleday. That belief was later refined, with the birth date shifting to 1846, in Hoboken, N.J. Still later, a New York University librarian found two newspaper references to some form of "base ball" in 1823 in New York City.

Now comes a new claimant. Pittsfield, a city of 40,000 in
the Berkshires, was the site Tuesday of a news conference
in which the star was a document from 1791 that suggests
the game of baseball had already become a nuisance here
when the nation was in its infancy. As such, the document
moves the American version of the game back into the 18th century.

The discovery of the document had its origins in some late-night research by John Thorn, a baseball historian. At the news conference in City Hall, he was like a proud father as the 1791 document, a bylaw passed by the town council then, was displayed in a glass case. The document is a sheet of tan paper, slightly smaller than 8 inches by 10 inches. The words it contained voiced concern over broken windows in a new meeting house, or church. In part, it read:

" for the Preservation of the Windows in the New Meeting
House no Person or Inhabitant of said Town, shall be
permitted to play at any Game called Wicket, Cricket,
Baseball, Batball, Football, Cat, Fives or any other Game
or Games with Balls, within the Distance of Eighty Yards
from said Meeting House."

Violators were warned that they would be fined five
shillings.

Thorn, 57, lives in Kingston, N.Y. He said the discovery of
the document began by accident. He has been writing
baseball books for 30 years, and the eighth edition of his "Total Baseball," a 2,688-page statistical encyclopedia he edits, is near completion. He is also writing a book on baseball's origins, and it was that effort that had him up late.

"A year ago, at 2 a.m., I was searching the Net for
baseball with various spellings: B-A-S-S, B-A-S-E, B-A-S-E
with a hyphen,'' he said at the news conference. "For some reason, I don't know why, I was looking at the University of Michigan's site 'Making of America.' There was a reference to a 1734-1800 history of Pittsfield, and there it was. It was not just a reference to a game of ball, but it was the real thing: baseball."

When Thorn appeared last month on ESPN's mock trial called, "Break Up the Bombers: The Yankees on Trial," Thorn mentioned his finding to Jim Bouton, a former Yankees pitcher.

For Bouton, 65, the news was a jackpot. He lives in North Egremont, Mass., a half-hour drive from here, and he is part of a group that is restoring Pittsfield's ballpark, Wahconah Park. He told Thorn the discovery was something big for this city.

Thorn called Pittsfield officials, who assured him that
council records dating from the 18th century were stored at
the Berkshire Athenaeum, the city's public library. Bouton encouraged the officials to look for the original document. A librarian, an archivist, a local historian and volunteers started looking.

The Michigan reference on the Web site cited a 1793
document. Nothing turned up. The searchers kept searching,
and 10 days after they started, they found what they were looking for in council minutes from 1791, not 1793.

The document in question was taken to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, and experts there said it was real. Now Pittsfield can lay claim to being the birthplace of baseball, but for how long?

"There's no evidence yet of games played here then," Thorn said, "but not many people are looking into it.''

He added: "I don't have a life other than this, so I'll be looking for evidence every day. We'll find something new."

What next for the document?

"It's going back to the
vault where we found it," Mayor James Ruberto said.

What next for Cooperstown, Hoboken and the other would-be birthplaces of baseball?

Thorn's assessment: "Abner Doubleday, Santa Claus and
Dracula are equally mythic figures."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/12/sports/baseball/12pittsfield.html?ex=1085385798&ei=1&en=70ab28389f7ec9bc

Regards,

Mark Jaeger

[PrettyBoyDonovan]

Re: Another reason to use the "Making of America" site

Well I don't know much about baseball, but wasn't the English game or Rounders (which I belive is a cross between modern baseball with some Cricket influences) also referred to as Baseball? I also remeber reading about a Jane Austin novel or book that referenced "Baseball" in England as early as the early 1790's. Whatever the case I find this very interesting, and hope more info can turn up.

Incidentley, a form of hockey known as shinny existed during the era, and was often found in Maine and New York. It was played on frozen ponds and streams, and was also played in the summer as a form of lacrosse.

[Moonshine]

Re: Another reason to use the "Making of America" site

Very interesting info!

As a one time player (I still like to think I never "retired") and having been in the Mariners organization many, many years ago, I like the game and I'm always interested in the roots.

I think Doubleday was accredited more with the organization of the game rather than the invention of it - although that's what he's been labeled for. Ken Burns' series, "Baseball" (if I recall) mentioned that.

You could find some sort of this game proably being played by cave men and indians if you really look back. After all, the Mayans were playing a sort of baskeball with a stone hoop and that's just before the birth of Christ, so it's somewhat hard to say the birth of anything definately occured in one spot one day in one year.

Just my 2 bits worth

Gotta run, my still needs attention...

Jim Ross

[Clarkbowman]

Makinf of America

Hello all,
Was not sure of a good place to put this, so here it is.
I have used this site for several years and I am sure alot of you have seen it but for any who have not it is a great tool for researching The war of the rebellion: a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies and several other resorces. It is ran by Cornell University. Hit the search button at the bottom and type in just about anything CW related. a battle, town a person and if it was in any of the reports it will bring you to them.
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html

**Edit Note. I tried to do a search on this and nothing came up. I can see now that it has been moved and this is old news. Oh well.

[CJDaley]

Re: Cornell's Making of America digital library

May I invite you to check out my website? It was created for a class dealing with Information Access in the Humanities, and contains links to sites known to be useful for scholarly research (such as both of the MOA sites), not just general information areas:

http://www.geocities.com/col90/civilwar.html

Amazing job! Thanks for compiling all those links, I've booked marked your website and so should the other 5,000 members of this forum. You get my vote for post of the month for your efforts in compiling primary source research on the Internet and putting it in one place. Thank you for your efforts.

[LindaTrent]

Re: Cornell's Making of America digital library

Here's my list of primary sources on the web. I'm sure I have more, but this was created 4 years ago for the civilian Camp of Instruction I did in New Jersey.

http://kgcivcoi2003.homestead.com/primary.html

Linda.

[col90]

Re: Cornell's Making of America digital library

Amazing job! Thanks for compiling all those links, I've booked marked your website and so should the other 5,000 members of this forum. You get my vote for post of the month for your efforts in compiling primary source research on the Internet and putting it in one place. Thank you for your efforts.

You're quite welcome! This is an ongoing project, and I frequently update and check the links, etc., to be sure that all are still viable. I often can find new ones from postings folks here make, and I even find that I use my own website in my work as a reference librarian!

Colleen