著者

和田 光弘 WADA Mitsuhiro

出版者

名古屋大学文学部

雑誌

名古屋大学文学部研究論集 (ISSN:04694716)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.57, pp.179-209, 2011-03-31 (Released:2011-04-14)

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This paper is intended to prove the utility of digital historical documents concerning George Washington and the Continental (Confederation) Congress in reconstructing several interesting aspects of Colonial and Revolutionary America. As a full-text search can be pursued effectively and quickly by utilizing digitized editions supplied by the websites of the Library of Congress, etc. which are accessible for free, we approach the theme above from three viewpoints: colonial manners, the “first” president of the U.S., and pocket watches of George Washington. In dealing with these subjects, we need to be conscious the whole structure of the historical materials we use, from an angle of “set” concept or nesting construction of documents. Several facts found are as follows. (1) By examining the digitized Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation written by George Washington himself, we find that he lays a stress on prohibitionary rules rather than recommendatory rules, especially talking about rules of conversation, resulting in our detecting interesting manner codes of the 18th century, some of which are still meaningful even today. (2) By investigating the digitized Journals of the Continental Congress which are the most fundamental documents on the Revolutionary era, we find that John Hanson of Maryland, so-called the “first” president of the U.S., cannot be identified even as the first president under the ratified Articles of Confederation nor as an identical president under the U.S. Constitution, inevitably. Moreover, it turns out that Founding Fathers uttered an important phrase, the “American Revolution” only six times in the Journals. (3) By using the full-text searching function equipped in the digitized Writings of George Washington form the Original Manuscript Sources compiled by J. Fitzpatrick, we reconstruct George Washington’s everyday life focusing on a word, “watch.” While showing the contemporary meanings of pocket watches and related items (seals, etc.) in the early modern Atlantic world, we dig into the deep structure of the Writings, and reveal the consumer world of Washington family, details of consignment system, and several customs concerning the transatlantic trade.