Where are Andrew Jackson’s Papers Located?

Andrew Jackson’s letters and papers are not at The Hermitage. The original documents are in hundreds of libraries, museums, and even in private collections. The Library of Congress in Washington, DC owns the largest single collection with over 20,000 items. The Hermitage owns about 300 items and the Tennessee State Library and Archives holds a small collection of Jackson letters as well.

Since 1971, the Andrew Jackson Papers Project, at the University of Tennessee, has been gathering copies of all of Jackson’s papers from all sources. Before then, The Library of Congress collections had been available on microfilm, but researchers had to go to many institutions to study the rest. The Project has published a microfilm supplement to the Library of Congress Collection and an index covering both sets of microfilm. The microfilm and its index are complete and are available at large research and university libraries. The project is also in the process of publishing a multi-volume printed set of selected papers with annotations. They are publishing the printed volumes in chronological order and have completed the years through 1828. An older six-volume edition of Jackson’s letters edited by John Spencer Bassett and published in 1930 contains a smaller selection of material primarily from the Library of Congress collection covering Jackson’s entire lifetime.

Researchers interested in consulting Jackson’s papers should check with their nearest large research library to see if they have the microfilm and printed editions of the Jackson papers. Although The Hermitage owns the microfilm, because of staff limitations we regret that we cannot research the papers except to answer specific questions.

The Papers of Andrew Jackson
Historians in the United States today are engaged in a collaborative enterprise of documentary editing. They are making available to the American public those documents that are most essential to understanding our history, such as the debates over adoption of the Constitution, the records of various branches of government, and the papers of famous Americans. Carefully collected, transcribed, and annotated, these documents are being published in high-quality editions that place the materials of original historical scholarship in the hands of any citizen who wishes to investigate the American past.

One of the landmark projects in this enterprise is The Papers of Andrew Jackson. Housed in the Department of History at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, the Jackson project seeks to collect and publish the entire corpus of Andrew Jackson documents. This includes letters to and from Jackson, official records from his military and government service, financial and legal papers, and miscellaneous notes and memoranda.

Launched in 1971, the Jackson project began by conducting a massive worldwide search for his surviving papers. More than 100,000 individual items were found, and new ones are still coming to light. The Library of Congress and National Archives each have extensive Jackson holdings, and scattered materials have been located in dozens of other archives and libraries, as well as in the hands of private collectors.

The Jackson Papers project does not seek ownership of original manuscripts, but collects a photocopy of every document it finds. In 1987, once the initial search was complete, the project arranged its copies in chronological order and reproduced them photographically on 39 reels of microfilm. Microfilming preserves the visual record of the documents in case the originals should be lost or destroyed, and it gathers them together in one place for easy use by researchers. The microfilm edition of The Papers of Andrew Jackson, with an accompanying index volume, was purchased by libraries throughout the country and is available for public use. Documents discovered since 1987 will be included in a future supplemental microfilm.

Simultaneously with the microfilm, the project began publishing a sixteen-volume book edition of Jackson's papers. Six volumes have appeared so far. They bring the story down through 1828, when Jackson was elected president. The next eight volumes will cover his presidency, from 1829 to 1837, and the last two will cover his retirement years. Where the microfilm presented photographic images of the handwritten original manuscripts, the book edition offers easy-to-read printed transcripts. Documents of greatest historical significance are reproduced in full, word for word, while others of less importance are briefly summarized. Each volume also includes a general introduction, a chronology of events, notes to explain the context of each document, and a complete subject index. With these tools it is possible within seconds to check for mention of any person, place, event, or subject in Jackson's papers.

Sam B. Smith and Harriet Owsley founded the project and produced its first volume. Harold D. Moser edited the next five volumes and the microfilm. The current editor and project director is Daniel Feller, who is also Professor of History at the University of Tennessee.

Contact Information for The Papers of Andrew Jackson

Daniel Feller
Professor of History and Editor/Director
The Papers of Andrew Jackson
University of Tennessee
Department of History
915 Volunteer Boulevard
6th Floor, Dunford Hall, #2642
Knoxville, TN 37996-4065
P 865 974-7077
F 865 974-3915