Target Audience: Law librarians interested in legal history, constitutional studies, archives, preservation, and local history
Learning Outcomes:
1. Participants will be able to identify the major contributions of James Wilson to the U.S. Constitution.
2. Participants will be able to examine and compare various projects providing preservation of, and access to, James Wilson's documents.
James Wilson is the author of the phrase "We The People" in the U.S. Constitution. He also signed the Declaration of Independence, served as an original member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and helped found the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His early notes and drafts, archived in Philadelphia, are being preserved and made accessible to researchers and scholars. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania has several versions of the U.S. Constitution, including the earliest surviving draft handwritten by Constitutional Convention delegate James Wilson and the first newspaper printing by The Pennsylvania Packet. This program will feature an archivist and law professor who will discuss the importance of Wilson's writings, his crucial role in creating our constitution, and the archive's current work of preservation and access.