The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690‐1783: Text Data Base and Index includes all references to music, poetry (lyrics), dance, and theater in American newspapers, from the earliest extant copy(1690) through the end of the Revolutionary War (1783). It even includes French and German language newspapers, such as the Philadelphische Zeitung published by Benjamin Franklin between 1755 and 1757.
The database comprises four files or indexes: bibliographic, citation, first line, and general index. The bibliographic index lists each of the 50,719 issues and 4,523 supplements of the 162 newspapers examined in this project. It comprises an issue‐by‐issue inventory of each newspaper issue and supplement organized alphabetically by newspaper title, and then chronologically within each year.
The file lists each newspaper under the place where it was published and groups all issues under a generic title. This brings together the entire run of the newspaper published in that place. Changes of title and editor are indicated within this file.
Each entry identifies the date, issue number, supplement, reader, location, call number, source (code for each title: e.g. State & City: Paper Symbol), generic title, actual title, publisher, state, city, and note. The reader field contains the initials of the person responsible for reading and collecting data from the issue cited. The location field shows the symbols of the libraries holding sources, facsimiles, or microfilm/cards used in this project. These were taken from Symbols of American Libraries, 14th ed. (Washington: Library of Congress Cataloging Distribution Service, 1992). The note can identify first or last issue located, any issues not located, extraordinary issues, or discontinuance information.
This information can also help researchers studying colonial American newspapers as they can search by publisher, city, and state. In this manner, we can learn that the Philadelphische Zeitung was not the only newspaper Benjamin Franklin published in a language other than English. He also published the Hoch Teusche und Englische Zeitung (The High‐Dutch and English Gazette).
The citation index contains 54,411 entries for references to theater, poetry (lyrics), music, and dance in the full text of the newspapers. Each entry lists the place of publication, ID, date and issue number, and a brief caption to help identify the reference. The ID appears in bright green that makes it hard to read. The date and issue number appear in blue. Both of these elements have hot links to the appropriate indexes (citation or bibliographic). These colored elements appear the same in the citations to facilitate navigation between indexes and references. When viewing the text of the reference, the ID can also toggle between the citation index and the reference.
The citation index toggles to the citation that lists the bibliographic information and a transcription of the entry. This could involve excerpts of an article or letter, descriptive background for an excerpt, possibly the full text of a brief article, or a complete advertisement. For lyrics, it provides the title and the first lines of the poem followed by a statement indicating how many more verses or lines followed.
The general and first line indexes appear and operate just as the citation index. The first line index contains 12,061 entries and includes the first line of all literary texts of at least four lines set in poetic meter and having a rhyming scheme. It does not include epigrams, anagrams, riddles, inscriptions, or epitaphs in verse form.
When viewing records, a button on the toolbar switches to a tree structured outline of all the newspapers. Here, a researcher can identify a title in the alphabetical list, select a year of publication, then an issue number. The nature of the information retrieved will depend on the index one examines (citation or bibliographic). In the citation index, one could use this approach to find all the references drawn from any newspaper issue.
One can search any index by blocking a word on the screen and right‐clicking or by clicking on the flashlight icon. As one types a term in the query box, a word wheel rotates to the nearest match and identifies the number of hits. Upon executing the search, hits appear in red. Query searches are file and field specific; so one must begin another search when switching files. The search form supports the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT, NEAR, and WITHIN.
The database also includes images of 37 woodcuts which researchers can search, magnify, or reduce. Printers used woodcuts over and over again in successive editions as pictorial devices in the masthead or as decorative blocks with the first letter of the first word in the paragraph set in the center. Many are nearly illegible through wear or poor inking, impression, or microfilm reproduction. Some of the best available images have been selected to represent each specific woodcut.
This database is not designed as a replacement for the newspapers. Rather, it is a bibliographic tool that helps identify pertinent information in those papers. Thus, it can promote use of these rare and hard‐to‐locate tools. Researchers can identify concerts, performances, and ticket prices in a particular city or in a certain year, They can search for performances of certain plays such as the Adulateur. As the author of this play is only listed as “a lady,” one cannot retrieve it or any other works by searching for Mercy Otis Warren as author; but one can locate eight citations for Phillis Wheatley. One can locate ads for lectures, balls, performances, book sales, and auctions. As in modern newspapers, these ads may be repeated in several subsequent issues.
While The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690‐1783seems targeted to researchers in the history of the performing arts, it has many other applications for general historians of the period and particularly for social historians. For example, one can identify articles on battles and casualties when they mention drummers or fifers. The database includes ads for runaway slaves who have a good voice, sing well, or play a musical instrument. Often these ads will include descriptive information about the person’s complexion and clothing or have a descriptive note like: “7 lines on clothing and mentioning former owner, plus instructions for returning to his owner.”
In the days before wire services, newspapers often reprinted articles from other newspapers. This database can help identify related pieces quickly as well as determine which ones include details that add to a story or differ from other accounts. The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690‐1783 fills a niche in American colonial history. Besides its obvious benefits to historians of the performing arts, it will prove very useful to historians focusing on colonial America and its social life. Historians of colonial American newspapers will also find it a valuable tool.
