August 9, 1993

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

I write to endorse strongly the ongoing research and publication project, The Biographical Dictionary of Early Pennsylvania Legislators, sponsored by Temple University and directed by an excellent group of scholars and advisers. I have studied the first volume (published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991), and I think it is an outstanding work of scholarship. Publications like this rarely attract attention, but they are the basic bedrock of historical study. The material is exhaustively researched, elaborately analyzed and indexed, and written clearly. Historians, not only of Pennsylvania but of the whole of early American history, will refer to it in all sorts of connections: for inquiries on the origins of American politics, American ethnicity, social mobility, economic growth, cultural levels, religion, and the processes of local and provincial governments. When completed, it will be a major source for historians, and hence it will be a significant contribution to American historical awareness.

I understand the project is applying for funds to help support the ongoing work and to see it through to completion. I hope very much they receive the funds they need. As I said, this is a major work of biographical and historical scholarship based on exhaustive research. In terms of its usefulness in American historical study, it deserves to be fully funded. I do not say that of every historical-editorial project under way, but this project is outstanding.

Sincerely, Bernard Bailyn

Adams University Professor,
Emeritus