Magazine of Early American Databases (MEAD)

The Magazine of Early American Datasets (MEAD) is an online repository of datasets compiled by historians of early North America. MEAD preserves and makes available these datasets in their original format and as comma-separated-value files (.csv). Each body of data is also accompanied by a codebook.  MEAD provides sweet, intoxicating data for your investigations of early North America and the Atlantic World. 

MEAD is sponsored by the McNeil Center of Early American Studies and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries. 

Please click on the titles of the datasets below for full bibliographic information, files in original and .csv format, codebook, and more. 

If you would like to submit data, please contact Billy G. Smith (bgs at montana dot edu) or Andrew M. Schocket (aschock at bgsu dot edu).

Please submit your data! Although clean data is nice, better to submit messy data than no data at all. Messy files can be replaced with cleaner ones in the future. Messy data mounted on MEAD is preserved; messy data waiting forever to be cleaned will be lost. OpenRefine is a free, easy tool to use to clean data. A tutorial on using OpenRefine is available from Programming Historian: https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/cleaning-data-with-openrefine

We welcome coordinated submissions to MEAD and to the Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation (JSDP), in which data articles are published in the JSDP and the dataset is ingested into Enslaved.org’s linked open data hub, while the dataset is preserved with MEAD. Simply indicate in your submission if you would like to pursue this option if your dataset is relevant to both platforms.  

For more about this project, read the feature on it on Common-Place.org. 

Questions? please contact Billy G. Smith (bgs at montana dot edu) or Andrew M. Schocket (aschock at bgsu dot edu). 

The MEAD-iators who brought you this resource: 
Mitch Fraas, Digital Research Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries 
Nicholas Okrent, Research and Instructional Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries 
Andrew M. Schocket, Department of History and American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University 
Billy W. Smith, Department of History, Philosophy, and Literary Studies, Montana State University
Sarah Wipperman, Repository Services, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

 

 

 

McNeil Center for Early American Studies (MCEAS)

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  • Dataset
    Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745
    (2023-10-04) Jason Daniels
    This dataset presents newspaper advertisements for runaway indentured servants, enslaved Africans (including individuals of African descent born in the Americas), and enslaved American Indians, as well as, deserters, escaped prisoners, and criminal fugitives extracted from The American Weekly Mercury (1719-1745). It contains 1,087 unique entries. While most of the entries refer to white indentured servants, a significant portion of the dataset is comprised of entries for enslaved Africans and enslaved American Indians, revealing an underappreciated diversity among laborers throughout the mid-Atlantic colonies during the first half of the eighteenth century. At their richest, the advertisements for runaways appearing in American colonial newspapers provide an individual’s name, sex, age, ethnicity, race, religion, information about their proprietor, talents and trade, state of health, gait, bearing, dress, language skills, traces of punishments, wounds, descriptions of brands, teeth, hair, skin color, perceived personality traits, distinguishing physical characteristics, presumed whereabouts, length of absence, and detailed descriptions of clothes and other material possessions. While this dataset is of particular importance for understanding the diversity of the mid-Atlantic’s, early-eighteenth-century, labor pool, and working-class resistance across identity groups, it also highlights the permeable boundaries and dynamic spaces of early American colonies, many of which those advertised as runaways sought to exploit. The dataset is described in Jason Daniels, “‘Gone towards Philadelphia’: Advertisements for Runaway Indentured Servants, Enslaved Africans, Enslaved American Indians, and Fugitives in the American Weekly Mercury, 1719-1745,” Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation 4, no. 3 (2023): 35-43.
  • Dataset
    Runaway Advertisements from Barbados, 1770 and 1783-89
    (2022-06-06) Newman, Simon P
    Newspaper advertisements written and published by enslavers seeking the capture and return of enslaved people who had escaped. Published in the Barbados Mercury in September to October 1770, and between April 1773 and March 1789, and in the Barbados Gazette between July 1787 and February 1789.
  • Dataset
    Runaway Slaves advertised in 18th-century Jamaica Newspapers
    (2019-01-01) Smith, Billy G
    This dataset contains information coded from Newspaper advertisements for RUNAWAY SLAVES published in Eighteenth-Century JAMAICA. While there are some gaps in the records because of missing newspapers, there are still a considerable number of advertisements included. One feature of the ads is that man identify the African ethnicity of runaway slaves. Professor Douglas B. Chambers (and others in his project) transcribed and notated the advertisements and made them available online https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001. More information about the project and the ads is available at https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001/citation Anthony Wood, currently a PhD in history at the University of Michigan, did most of the hard work of coding. Professor Billy G. Smith checked the results to eliminate mistakes.
  • Dataset
    Runaway Advertisements from Jamaica, 1781-2
    (2022-06-06) Newman, Simon P
    Newspaper advertisements written and published by enslavers seeking the capture and return of enslaved people who had escaped. Published in the Gazette of St Jago (Spanish Town), Jamaica, February 1781 to October 1782.
  • Dataset
    Escaped and Captured Slave Datasets from Newspapers in Jamaica, 1718-1795
    (2021-07-01) Wood, Anthony; Smith, Billy G
    We created two datasets about fugitives and captives in eighteenth-century Jamaica, one of the most violent systems of racial bondage in the Atlantic World. To produce the first dataset as an Excel file, we organized and recorded information contained in hundreds of newspaper advertisements offering rewards for the return of escaped slaves in Jamaica between 1718 and 1795. While there are some gaps in the records because of missing newspapers, there are still a considerable number of advertisements included. One feature of the ads is that many identify the African ethnicity of runaway and captured slaves. The second dataset also consists of information from newspaper notices about escapees who had been captured and confined to Workhouses between 1790 and 1795. We relied on the advertisements edited and transcribed by Professor Douglas B. Chambers (and others in his project) and made them available online https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001. More information about the project and the ads is available at https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00021144/00001/citation Anthony Wood, currently a PhD in history at the University of Michigan, did most of the hard work of coding. Professor Billy G. Smith checked the results to eliminate mistakes.
  • Dataset
    Passengers on the South Carolina Railroad, 1834-1857
    (2016-04-04) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly statistics for passengers on the South Carolina Railroad and its predecessor companies, as given in the annual or semi-annual reports of those companies. The South Carolina Railroad initially ran from Charleston to Hamburg, SC, and was completed in 1833. A branch to Columbia opened in 1842 and to Camden in 1848.
  • Dataset
    A Just and True Return: A Dataset of Pennsylvania's Surviving County Slave Registries
    (2022-06-30) Young, Cory James
    A Just and True Return (JATR) contains information about more than 6,300 Black people and their enslavers principally taken from extant registries from fifteen Pennsylvania counties: Adams, Allegheny, Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Fayette, Lancaster, Northampton, Washington, and Westmoreland. It also includes a handful of records from four counties—Crawford, Franklin, Philadelphia, and York—whose registries have not been located, but which can be partially reconstructed from a variety of other sources. Pennsylvania's 1780 gradual abolition law required enslavers to register with their county clerk any people they wished to continue holding in lifetime slavery. A 1788 law required that they do the same for any children they wished to hold in twenty-eight-year term slavery. Complete entries provide the name, age or birthday, race, and sex of enslaved people; the name, place of residence, and occupation of their enslavers; and the registration date. Slightly less than two-thirds of the entries describe people whom enslavers held in lifetime slavery, whereas more than one-third describe children they held in term slavery. An ongoing project, JATR is the first effort to compile all surviving registration data in a single location and contributes to our understanding of slavery’s survival in the northern United States during the early republic.
  • Dataset
    Freight income on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, November 1858-October 1859
    (2016-04-12) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad from November 1858-October 1859 as given in the annual report of the company. The annual report broke out western and eastern freight separately.
  • Dataset
    Freight income on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad, June 1854-May 1855
    (2016-04-11) Marrs, Aaron
    This dataset provides monthly income from freight on the Greenville and Columbia Railroad from June 1854 to May 1855 as given in the annual report of the company. The annual report broke out up and down freight separately.
  • Dataset
    Mathew Carey Papers Names Index Database
    (2016-09-01) American Antiquarian Society
    Mathew Carey (1760-1839), publisher, economist, and humanitarian, was born in Dublin, Ireland. He came to the United States in 1784 after involvement in Irish revolutionary activities and took up his trade as a printer, publishing the Pennsylvania Herald and the periodical, The American Museum. His book publishing ventures prospered and his firm was a leader in American printing and publishing in the period 1795 to 1835. Carey was an active proponent of the protective tariff, as well as an ardent champion of oppressed minorities in Europe, especially after his retirement from business in 1821. His business was thereafter conducted by his son, Henry C. Carey (1793-1879). This dataset consists of all names referenced in The Mathew Carey Papers, which includes receipts, bills, memoranda, invoices, bills of lading, and other records of his publishing business and its successors: Carey, Lea, and Company; and Lea and Blanchard. For a finding aid and more information about the collection, please click here. The finding aid will take you to the images for each box and folder, so if you want to browse by that organization level, please start there. The quickest and easiest way to search these archives is through the database of the 6,148 names in the 16,000 scans of the financial records. For more on how these papers came to AAS, please see visit the American Antiquarian Society blog.