Digital History

Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive Project (SCOS)

I am co-director of the Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive Project (SCOS) with my colleagues at the University of Virginia Law Library. SCOS is an initiative to explore everyday life in early America and the British Atlantic world of eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through Session Papers. These printed materials were submitted to Scotland's supreme civil court as part of the litigation process. As a court of appeal and of first instance, the Court of Session in this period held jurisdiction over contract and commercial cases, matters of succession and land ownership, divorce proceedings, intellectual property and copyright disputes, and contested political elections. Scottish women, Virginia merchants, aristocratic Highland proprietors, famous authors, enslaved laborers, soldiers, American Loyalists, and many more individuals sought justice before the Court of Session in this era.

1828 Catalogue Project

The 1828 Catalogue Project of the University of Virginia Law Library reconstructs the collection of legal texts that Thomas Jefferson acquired for the university’s original library. It provides researchers with a firsthand look into the canonical works of early American law and legal education. I served as co-director of this project while I was the Farmer Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities at the Law Library.

Center for Digital History at the Washington Library

I formerly led the Center for Digital History at the Washington Library, its home for digital research, scholarship, and public history centered on the Revolutionary and Founding eras. In collaboration with partners at Mount Vernon and beyond, the CDH seeks to expand knowledge about early America through digital projects that inform new scholarly research initiatives and teaching opportunities.