The Selected Papers of John Jay is an ongoing endeavor by scholars at Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library to organize, transcribe and publish a wide range of politically and culturally important letters authored by and written to American Founding Father John Jay that demonstrate the depth and breadth of Jay's contributions as a nation builder. More than 13,000 documents from over 75 university and historical collections have been compiled and photographed to date. Printed volumes illustrate Jay's roles as a patriot, jurist, diplomat, peacemaker and governor. As of January 2022, all seven planned chronological letterpress volumes have been published. A free searchable database of Jay's papers is available through Founders Online, a website maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration that also includes the writings and letters of Washington, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton.[1][2]
The project was originally begun by noted American historian Richard B. Morris in the 1950s. As of Morris's death in 1989, only two volumes had been published.[3] After more than a decade of little progress, new sources of underwriting helped reinvigorate the work. Under the leadership of editor Elizabeth M. Nuxoll and other prominent Jay scholars, Volumes 1 through 7 of The Selected Papers of John Jay were published as a series by the University of Virginia Press.[4][5]
In October 2010, the National Archives and University of Virginia Press announced their intention to create Founders Online, a public access website devoted to the writings of the Founding Fathers.[6] The website went online in October 2013, providing free access to the complete record of six founders, plus a limited number of Jay's papers.[7] In collaboration with Columbia University, the collection of Jay's writings and correspondence was expanded in 2020 with the addition of the first five volumes of The Selected Papers of John Jay.[1] Founders Online also includes the annotated writings and correspondence of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington in a searchable database of 185,000 individual documents drawn from the letterpress editions of the founders' papers.[6]
In 2021, as Columbia's John Jay project reached completion, editors of the project together with Columbia University Libraries and the university's Office of the Provost hosted a two-day symposium featuring the research of numerous scholars with a keynote address by historian Joanne B. Freeman.[8]