Magazine of Early American Databases (MEAD)

The Magazine of Early American Datasets (MEAD) is an online repository of datasets compiled by historians of early North America. MEAD preserves and makes available these datasets in their original format and as comma-separated-value files (.csv). Each body of data is also accompanied by a codebook.  MEAD provides sweet, intoxicating data for your investigations of early North America and the Atlantic World. 

MEAD is sponsored by the McNeil Center of Early American Studies and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. 

Please click on the titles of the datasets below for full bibliographic information, files in original and .csv format, codebook, and more. 

If you would like to submit data, please contact Billy G. Smith (bgs at montana dot edu) or Andrew M. Schocket (aschock at bgsu dot edu).

Please submit your data! Although clean data is nice, better to submit messy data than no data at all. Messy files can be replaced with cleaner ones in the future. Messy data mounted on MEAD is preserved; messy data waiting forever to be cleaned will be lost. OpenRefine is a free, easy tool to use to clean data. A tutorial on using OpenRefine is available from Programming Historian: https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/cleaning-data-with-openrefine

We welcome coordinated submissions to MEAD and to the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation (JSDP), in which data articles are published in the JSDP and the dataset is ingested into Enslaved.org’s linked open data hub, while the dataset is preserved with MEAD. Simply indicate in your submission if you would like to pursue this option if your dataset is relevant to both platforms.  

For more about this project, read the feature on it on Common-Place.org. 

Questions? please contact Billy G. Smith (bgs at montana dot edu) or Andrew M. Schocket (aschock at bgsu dot edu). 

The MEAD-iators who brought you this resource: 
Mitch Fraas, Digital Research Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries 
Nicholas Okrent, Research and Instructional Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries 
Andrew M. Schocket, Department of History and American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University 
Billy W. Smith, Department of History, Philosophy, and Literary Studies, Montana State University
Sarah Wipperman, Repository Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

 

 

 

Search results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 58
  • Dataset
    Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745
    (2023-10-04) Jason Daniels
    This dataset presents newspaper advertisements for runaway indentured servants, enslaved Africans (including individuals of African descent born in the Americas), and enslaved American Indians, as well as, deserters, escaped prisoners, and criminal fugitives extracted from The American Weekly Mercury (1719-1745). It contains 1,087 unique entries. While most of the entries refer to white indentured servants, a significant portion of the dataset is comprised of entries for enslaved Africans and enslaved American Indians, revealing an underappreciated diversity among laborers throughout the mid-Atlantic colonies during the first half of the eighteenth century. At their richest, the advertisements for runaways appearing in American colonial newspapers provide an individual’s name, sex, age, ethnicity, race, religion, information about their proprietor, talents and trade, state of health, gait, bearing, dress, language skills, traces of punishments, wounds, descriptions of brands, teeth, hair, skin color, perceived personality traits, distinguishing physical characteristics, presumed whereabouts, length of absence, and detailed descriptions of clothes and other material possessions. While this dataset is of particular importance for understanding the diversity of the mid-Atlantic’s, early-eighteenth-century, labor pool, and working-class resistance across identity groups, it also highlights the permeable boundaries and dynamic spaces of early American colonies, many of which those advertised as runaways sought to exploit. The dataset is described in Jason Daniels, “‘Gone towards Philadelphia’: Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745,” Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation 4, no. 3 (2023): 35-43.
  • Dataset
    St. Martinville Louisiana Baptism Network
    (2022-12-01) Merring-Darling, Kathy; Kane, Maeve
    This dataset includes a transcription of the baptismal register for the French Catholic church Saint-Martin des Attakapas, now modern St. Martinville Louisiana, as well as a cleaned version of each baptism formatted as source-target pairs for social network analysis. The data includes 163 baptisms from 1756 to 1794, mainly of displaced Acadians. A handful of enslaved and Indigenous people are also represented. The data has been prepared for network analysis by regularizing the spelling of names. Source/Target pairs for network analysis were created by creating a pair between all adults who participated in a baptism. The network is assumed to be undirected. The year of baptism or edge creation is included in the edgelist file.
  • Dataset
    Philadelphia Black People 1790 Census
    (2014-01-01) Smith, Billy G
    The data is all the black householders recorded on the 1790 federal census in Philadelphia and its suburbs.
  • Dataset
    Federal Disbursements for Indian Title in the Louisiana Territory, 1804-2012
    (2017-01-01) Lee, Robert
    This dataset covers federal disbursements related to 222 Indian land cessions made within the area ringed by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 between 1804 and 1970. The payments cover the period from 1804 to 2012. The information is presented in five tables that categorize different types of disbursements (i.e. original payments on treaties and various types of courts awards and settlements). The data was collected for, and is further described, analyzed, and referred to, in Robert Lee, “Accounting tor Conquest: The Price of the Louisiana Purchase of Indian Country,” The Journal of American History (March 2017).
  • Dataset
    1789 TAX LIST OF PHILADELPHIA'S 11 WARDS
    (2019-01-01) Smith, Billy G
    1789 TAX LIST OF PHILADELPHIA'S 11 WARDS, (an 80% random sample). Note: the suburbs of N. Liberties and Southwark are not included. Poorer people tended to live disproportionately in those suburbs. NOTE: After data was entered, I entered separately all the rental unit values, added these values to that of the owners and subtracted them from that of the renter.. See the further explanation in Codebook Source: Philadelphia City Archives
  • Dataset
    York County Probate Records 1700-1800
    (2016-10-31) Lucas, Wendy E; Campbell, Noel D
    We organized this data set to investigate whether gender had a significant impact on how appraisers conducted probate court estate inventories. If society drew a distinction between a man’s world and his work and a woman’s world and her work, then it may have associated different goods with the different worlds. This could have created ‘men’s possessions’ and ‘women’s possessions,’ ascribing gender to material objects. Acting within this set of cultural assumptions, probate appraisers might have wittingly or unwittingly inventoried estates differently on the basis of female involvement with the estate. We used the York County Estate Inventories are available through the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation at http://research.history.org/DigitalLibrary/inventories/. Over the 101 years to which we restricted ourselves (1700-1800, inclusive), we obtained 693 usable inventories. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation lists 852 items in this collection. One hundred and eight were inventories filed prior to 1700. Of the remaining documents, not all were estate inventories, and some documents were verbatim repeats of previous documents. Still others were simply not useful due to excessive information loss.
  • Dataset
    Federal Revolutionary War Invalid Pension Claims, 1792-1795
    (2021-12-14) Daen, Laurel R
    This dataset contains the names and accompanying information of 573 Revolutionary War veterans who applied for federal “invalid” pensions between 1792 and 1795. As early as 1776, the Continental Congress authorized the provision of pensions to veterans who were “disabled in the service of the United States of America” and thereby rendered “incapable afterwards of getting a livelihood.” Veterans typically applied to district courts where district judges evaluated their deservingness of support and their particular “degrees” of disability (one quarter, one half, and so on) which corresponded with their pension amounts. District courts then transmitted veterans’ information and district judges’ decisions to the War Department for approval. This dataset is comprised of lists compiled by the Secretary of War and communicated to the United States Congress. These lists were later included in the American State Papers (Claims, Volume 1).
  • Dataset
    George Washington's Shipping Invoices from London Factors 1754-1772
    (2016-08-01) Lucas, Wendy E; Campbell, Noel D
    From 1754-1772, Washington marketed his crop on the consignment system. He shipped his tobacco to British 'factors' who would sell it for him on the British market, often for re-export to continental Europe. With his tobacco (and at other times during the year), Washington would send correspondence including a list of items he wished his factors to purchase for him with the tobacco revenues and ship to Virginia. The factors would attempt to fulfill Washington's purchase requests, based on product availability and their knowledge of his tastes and willingness to spend. After deducting shipping costs, insurance charges, duties and tariffs, etc., as well as the factors' own fees, Washington's revenues typically were less than the expense of his requested purchases. Usually, the factors would fulfill all (or nearly all) of Washington's purchase request, lending him large sums of money in the process. Although terms varied, five percent annual interest commencing six months after purchase were not uncommon. Along with Washington's purchased goods, the factors would send correspondence detailing what they purchased and how much they spent, as well as other information relevant to fulfilling his purchase order. We refer to this return correspondence as the 'shipping receipts.' Some of the information contained therein form the basis of this data set. The available shipping receipts spanned 1754 through 1772, but none were available for 1755, 1756, or 1769. Overall, there were 27 receipts, in total, in 16 years.
  • Dataset
    Freight income on the Central Railroad of Georgia, 1845-1860
    (2016-04-12) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the Central Railroad of Georgia from 1845 to 1860 as given in the annual reports of the company. The annual report broke out up and down freight separately.
  • Dataset
    Haudenosaunee Economic and Social Connections, 1695-1726
    (2022-01-01) Kane, Maeve
    This dataset is a cleaned version of the account book of fur trader Evert Wendell in Albany, NY, transcribed from the original held by the New-York Historical Society. The account book is also available transcribed and translated in a published edition edited by Kees-Jan Waterman and Gunther Michelson. This dataset documents the social connections between 102 Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and Mahican people between 1695 and 1726, and has been prepared for network analysis by regularizing the spelling of names and using information from the published version of the account book to match individuals who appear under differently spelled names where possible. Source/Target pairs for network analysis were created for individuals with documented interactions with one another, such as people who bought gifts for another person, people who vouched for the credit of another person, or people who traveled together. The network is assumed to be undirected. Date information for edge creation is not included in the dataset but is available in the published version of the account book. Individuals are identified by gender and nation where possible. Individuals in the edge sheet are identified by ID number listed in the nodes sheet.