The Washington Papers

[3] The project is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Packard Humanities Institute, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, the University of Virginia, the Florence Gould Foundation, and other private donors.

The Washington Papers are used to provide researchers with a different form of access than the ones offered by the Library of Virginia and American Memory by way of increased ease of reading, both in legibility and in context.

Its first editor-in-chief, Donald Jackson, was appointed and the project sought to "be the most comprehensive compilation yet and include not just letters Washington wrote, but those he received".

[5] Starting in 1976 the Washington Papers project began releasing sets of its collection via the University Press of Virginia.

In 2010 the National Historical Publications and Records Commission and the University of Virginia Press announced a new project, Founders Online, which would provide users with free access to papers relating to the Founding Fathers.

Once completed, the project will provide users with access to material that will describe the context and meaning of each text that significantly portrays George Washington.

The project will transcribe George Washington’s ship log and diary from his journey to Barbados with his brother Lawrence in 1751.

Once completed, the material and its annotations will be available in both digital and letterpress editions The Washington Papers has organized several outreach projects, several of which are aimed at educating primary and secondary students.

Also edited by Twohig, the papers were maintained by Washington's secretaries Tobias Lear and Bartholomew Dandridge, and are written in the first person.

The set has been edited by W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Theodore J. Crackel and Edward G. Lengel, and covers Washington's papers from the Revolutionary War.

The volumes cover Washington's life at Mount Vernon after the Revolutionary War, resulting in most of the papers being of a personal nature rather than official.

The volumes have been edited by W. W. Abbot, Dorothy Twohig, Philander D. Chase, Theodore J. Crackel and Edward G. Lengel, and is currently number 18, the first of which was released in 1987.