Douglass is an electronic archive of American oratory and related documents intended to serve both general scholarship and courses in American rhetorical history at Northwestern University. Named after Frederick Douglass, one the USA’s greatest speakers, it contains the text of over 100 speeches ranging from 1645 to 1995. Writings from such figures as Jane Addams, William Jennings Bryan, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and many more are available. Also, one can find US historical documents such as the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence. Subjects covered range from care for the poor to women’s rights. In addition to the documents, the site contains speech guides, research notes, links to resources for students and communication professionals, and links for debates on current controversial issues. While there are several sites that collect significant literary works and historical documents, Douglass is one of the few sites dedicated to the study of speeches. It is intended to be the first stop for students of public address.
The initial page offers access to the site’s resources. Users can utilize the site’s full‐text search engine or browse the collected speeches and related documents in various categories. The speeches are indexed by speaker, title, chronology, and “controversy or movement”. Transcriptions of the documents have remained as close to a literal reproduction of the manuscript as possible, with the exception of drop‐caps and ornamental marks which have not been imitated. Other features include the numbered paragraphs, footnotes placed immediately following the paragraph which contains the referring mark or number, and endnotes hyperlinked to the end of the document.
To facilitate the study of a particular document, direct links are provided to the user pages. An Outline of American History, published by the United States Information Office, provides the bulk of the additional information. Also, depending upon the particular document, one may find related speech guides and research notes. These are designed to fill the gap between published scholarly papers and less formal efforts such as newsgroups. The notes pages, limited to a specific time frame, provide a venue for brief comments, Web links, and bibliographic information. In contrast, the speech guides pages are designed to cover issues, thus they may cover several eras of American history. Unfortunately, the site currently offers only a few research notes and speech guides.
Students and researchers will find the numerous links to other Web sites useful. Professional links include communication associations and listservs, publishing and product announcements, travel resources, communications departments and directories, teaching guides, and recent news articles. One link that students will find invaluable is to the rhetoric and public address resources of the American Communication Association. Other offerings are links to library catalogs, encyclopedias and biographical information, maps, literary reference sources, general reference materials, translation tools, major newspapers, television resources, religious resources, the US government and political parties, US presidents, and the latest presidential race. If users still cannot find what they are looking for within these links, a variety of search engines (with brief descriptions of each one’s unique abilities) is provided.
It is easy to see why Douglass has already received numerous awards for being a valuable site. It is well organized and navigation is fairly easy. Besides its important function as the electronic archives of US public addresses, Douglass is also unique in that it offers hypertext, the ability to involve users integrally, and the ability to link speeches to off‐site resources. Students and scholars of history and oratory will enjoy the variety of information they can access. The site will also attract historians, high school teachers, political scientists, journalists, and the general public. The site encourages user contributions and recommendations of documents to include, a clear indication that the site will continue to grow. As an archive of the words that shaped the USA, this is a recommended reference source for any academic library.
