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 click the "Submit Research" button to the left for specific instructions related to MEAD. 

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 (tutorial here). 

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

 

 

 

McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS)

Filters

2014 - 2019412020 - 202316
57
57
Reset filters

Settings

Search results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 57
  • Publication
    Freight income on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, November 1858-October 1859
    (2016-04-12) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad from November 1858-October 1859 as given in the annual report of the company. The annual report broke out western and eastern freight separately.
  • Publication
    Mathew Carey Papers Names Index Database
    (2016-09-01) American Antiquarian Society

    Mathew Carey (1760-1839), publisher, economist, and humanitarian, was born in Dublin, Ireland. He came to the United States in 1784 after involvement in Irish revolutionary activities and took up his trade as a printer, publishing the Pennsylvania Herald and the periodical, The American Museum. His book publishing ventures prospered and his firm was a leader in American printing and publishing in the period 1795 to 1835. Carey was an active proponent of the protective tariff, as well as an ardent champion of oppressed minorities in Europe, especially after his retirement from business in 1821. His business was thereafter conducted by his son, Henry C. Carey (1793-1879).

    This dataset consists of all names referenced in The Mathew Carey Papers, which includes receipts, bills, memoranda, invoices, bills of lading, and other records of his publishing business and its successors: Carey, Lea, and Company; and Lea and Blanchard. For a finding aid and more information about the collection, please click here. The finding aid will take you to the images for each box and folder, so if you want to browse by that organization level, please start there. The quickest and easiest way to search these archives is through the database of the 6,148 names in the 16,000 scans of the financial records. For more on how these papers came to AAS, please see visit the American Antiquarian Society blog.

  • Publication
    Freight income on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad, June 1854-May 1855
    (2016-04-11) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad from June 1854 to May 1855 as given in the annual report of the company. The annual report broke out up and down freight separately.
  • Publication
    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.
  • Publication
    Escaped and Captured Slave Datasets from Newspapers in Jamaica, 1718-1795
    (2021-07-01) Wood, Anthony; Smith, Billy G
    We created two datasets about fugitives and captives in eighteenth-century Jamaica, one of the most violent systems of racial bondage in the Atlantic World. To produce the first dataset as an Excel file, we organized and recorded information contained in hundreds of newspaper advertisements offering rewards for the return of escaped slaves in Jamaica between 1718 and 1795. While there are some gaps in the records because of missing newspapers, there are still a considerable number of advertisements included. One feature of the ads is that many identify the African ethnicity of runaway and captured slaves. The second dataset also consists of information from newspaper notices about escapees who had been captured and confined to Workhouses between 1790 and 1795. We relied on the advertisements edited and transcribed by Professor Douglas B. Chambers (and others in his project) and made them available online https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001. More information about the project and the ads is available at https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001/citation Anthony Wood, currently a PhD in history at the University of Michigan, did most of the hard work of coding. Professor Billy G. Smith checked the results to eliminate mistakes.
  • Publication
    Runaway Advertisements from Jamaica, 1782, 1813, 1816, 1822, and 1823
    (2022-06-06) Newman, Simon P
    Newspaper advertisements written and published by enslavers seeking the capture and return of enslaved people who had escaped. Published in the Royal Gazette April 1781 to January 1782, January to December 1813, July to October 1816, February to October 1822, and February to March 1823.
  • Publication
    Passengers on the South Carolina Railroad, 1834-1857
    (2016-04-04) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly statistics for passengers on the South Carolina Railroad and its predecessor companies, as given in the annual or semi-annual reports of those companies. The South Carolina Railroad initially ran from Charleston to Hamburg, SC, and was completed in 1833. A branch to Columbia opened in 1842 and to Camden in 1848.
  • Publication
    Freight income on the South Carolina Railroad, 1834-1857
    (2016-04-07) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the South Carolina Railroadand its predecessor companies, as given in the annual or semi-annual reports of those companies. The annual reports broke out up and down freight separately. The South Carolina Railroad initially ran from Charleston to Hamburg, SC, and was completed in 1833. A branch to Columbia opened in 1842 and to Camden in 1848.
  • Publication
    Philadelphia 1754 TAX LIST FOR CHESTNUT, SOUTH, AND MIDDLE WARDS matched with taxpayers on 1756 tax list
    (2018-12-31) Smith, Billy G; Nash, Gary B
    Philadelphia 1754 TAX LIST FOR CHESTNUT, SOUTH, AND MIDDLE WARDS matched with taxpayers on 1756 tax list. Note: only the tax list for 3 wards in 1754 is still extant. In addition, the names in this file do not include all of the names in 1754 but only the names of taxpayers who were recorded in 1756 as well. (Note: see separate file on MEAD for the full 1756 tax list). SOURCE: Hannah Benner Roach, comp., "Taxables in Chestnut, Middle and South Wards," The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, volume 21, 151-96.
  • Publication
    Runaway Advertisements from Barbados, 1770 and 1783-89
    (2022-06-06) Newman, Simon P
    Newspaper advertisements written and published by enslavers seeking the capture and return of enslaved people who had escaped. Published in the Barbados Mercury in September to October 1770, and between April 1773 and March 1789, and in the Barbados Gazette between July 1787 and February 1789.