In 1774, Thomas Jefferson gave his allies in Virginia politics permission to publish his essay, Summary View of the Rights of British America. Even after the pamphlet was printed multiple times across the American colonies and in London, Jefferson continued to revise his personal copy of the text. Here are the changes he intended.
Because only a few paper mills were established in Colonial America between 1690 and the Revolution, the growing American print industry was largely dependent on an imported supply of paper. In the 1760s, Britain exploited this vulnerability by placing taxes on paper, sparking tensions that would lead to Revolution.
As we prepare to celebrate the United States' 250th birthday on July 4, 2026, the Rare Book and Special Collections Division is producing a series of short films that highlight items related to American history and culture with particular focus on the Founding era.
An early proponent of gamification, the Franciscan preacher and satirist, Thomas Murner (1475-1537), used card games as pedagogical tools. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has a copy of one of his logic card games, Logica memorativa: chartiludium logice, sive totius dialectice memoria (Strasburg, 1509).
This post introduces readers to a once popular but now obsolete use of the term "common sense," as it is presented in Gregor Reisch (1467-1525)'s enormously popular text book, Margarita Philosophica, first printed in 1503.
