People of the Founding

Enables users to search the various papers and documents contained in the University of Virginia’s Founding Era full-text documents to identify individuals and their connections. Prosopography is the study of groups of people (grouped by gender, occupation, birth year, and other key data points) to study the group itself, not just the individuals. This database enables users to identify connections, patterns, etc. through a keyword search, with limits for gender, birth/death year, occupation, religion, and geographical region to better enable such a prosopographical study. The data is less robust for women, slaves, and Native Americans due to the nature of the historical record, but is still useful for identifying patterns among these groups. References to the primary sources in the Founding Era documents (which Baylor also owns digitally) makes finding the context for the individual very easy. Interactive, visual graphs of connections are provided. Brief biographies are provided for all individuals and the data on each person is presented in the same way so that searches can be more effective. The People of the Founding Era is still a work in progress with information being added regularly.