Image of Martin Van Buren getting a little tipsy on champagne!
To steal a line from our friends at Friends of Lindenwald and Martin Van Buren National Historic Site, let's party with Marty on this Presidents' Day!
Flyer with info on this evening's Cynthia Van Buren Lecture
Two particular donors deserve mention. Bob & Pam Black made the initial donation to get PMVB off of the ground, & Cynthia Van Buren left an estate gift that funds the lecture series named in her memory & provides funding for our student internships.
We also want to thank past and present members of our advisory board for their advice and support. vanburenpapers.org/about-projec...
and the Tennessee General Assembly), our editorial staff (James Bradley, Erica Cavanaugh, Katie Blizzard, Andrew Wiley, David Gregory, Katie Hatton, Aaron Crawford, Max Matherne, Cole Nichols, Ed Bradley, and Maggie Baldwin), and our students and volunteers: vanburenpapers.org/about-projec....
Over the past ten years, our work has been made possible by our sponsors and partners (Cumberland Univ., @nehgov.bsky.social, the NHPRC, the Center for Digital Editing (centerfordigitalediting.org), the Van Buren Family Foundation, the Watson-Brown Foundation, the Heller Family Foundation,
Photo of original PMVB staff members
Today marks ten years since the Papers of Martin Van Buren officially launched at Cumberland Univ. Our project has built on the solid foundation provided by the original PMVB project @ Penn State Univ. (1969-87), transforming its microfilm edition into a more accessible 21st-century digital edition.
Flyer with information about lecture, headshot of Dr. Andrew Wiley, and various sponsor logos
Two weeks from today, we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of our project!
Project director Mark Cheathem recently wrote updated essays on Martin Van Buren for the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
millercenter.org/president/va...
Flyer with info on CVB Lecture
Flyer with info on afternoon celebration of project
On Presidents Day, Feb 16, we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of @vanburenpapers.bsky.social's launch, starting w/ an afternoon event looking at the history of the Van Buren Papers & providing updates on its progress. At 7 PM, PMVB editor Andrew Wiley will deliver the Cynthia Van Buren Lecture.
Anyone know of a site that has the complete text or images of the plaques for the new "Presidential Walk of Fame"? Looking for one particular president . . . 😉
Visit our website (vanburenpapers.org) or contact us if you want to be added to the newsletter subscription list, which comes out in June and December.
Image of newsletter front page excerpt.
Our December 2025 newsletter is out! In it you will find updates about the project, including an in-depth look at one of Van Buren's letters and an interview with one of our former student interns!
us17.campaign-archive.com?u=d991be5c79...
Visit our website (vanburenpapers.org) or contact us if you want to be added to the newsletter subscription list, which comes out in June and December.
Image of newsletter front page excerpt.
Our December 2025 newsletter is out! In it you will find updates about the project, including an in-depth look at one of Van Buren's letters and an interview with one of our former student interns!
us17.campaign-archive.com?u=d991be5c79...
Forward-facing portrait of MVB from the 1820s
On this date in 1782, Martin Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York. He would serve as the 8th president of the United States.
You can learn more about his life at our website vanburenpapers.org
Interested in learning how to incorporate Martin Van Buren's documents into your high school classroom? Join us on May 19, 2026, to learn how!
centerfordigitalediting.org/events/may-w...
Dr. Tom Balcerski standing at podium with Powerpoint slide in the background
Four white men standing in front of a banner of Martin Van Buren
If you missed last night's lecture by Dr. Tom Balcerski, you can watch it at the link below.
www.youtube.com/live/YdSFauS...
Flyer for Cynthia Van Buren Lecture, with events details and photo of Dr. Tom Balcerski
Tonight's lecture will be livestreamed for those not able to attend.
www.youtube.com/live/YdSFauS...
Flyer with photo of event speaker and details about event
Dr. Tom Balcerski will be delivering the Fall 2025 Cynthia Van Buren Lecture on campus tomorrow.
Image of Dewitt Clinton pouring water from Lake Erie into New York Harbor as part of the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal.
"We have now all the information we can wish—We must make up our minds either to be expending large sums in Legislation, year after year,—or we must go on with the project. After so much has been done and said upon this subject, it would belittle the state to abandon it. He considered it the most important vote which he ever gave in his life;—but the project, if executed, would raise the state to the highest possible pitch of fame and grandeur.—He repeated that we were bound to consider that the people have given their assent.—Twelve thousand men of wealth and respectability in the city of New-York, last year petitioned for the canal; and at all events, before the operations would be commenced, the people, if opposed to the measure, would have ample time to express their will upon the subject."
On this date in 1825, the Erie Canal opened. Martin Van Buren explained his support of the canal's construction in an 1817 speech that he gave while a New York state senator.
Credit: New York State Archives Partnership Trust and vanburenpapers.org/document-mvb...
Logo of NEH: Seal with an eagle on left, NEH on the right
NHPRC logo: Text reads National Archives and National Historical Publications and Records Commission
at Cumberland Univ.’s Alumni Hall on Tues., Oct. 28, at 7:00P. PMVB is making approximately 15,000 Van Buren documents freely accessible to the public. Cumberland University, the NHPRC, and the NEH sponsor PMVB, produced in partnership with the Center for Digital Editing at the Univ. of Virginia.
Smiling white man dressed in brown checked blazer and red sweater
Dr. Thomas J. Balcerski, professor of history at Eastern Connecticut State Univ. & director of the Center for Connecticut Studies, will deliver the Fall 2025 Cynthia Van Buren Lecture, “The Democracy and the Partisan Historians: Writing Party History in the Nineteenth Century United States,”
White woman standing in front of posterboard sitting on a table
Posterboard showing images, letters, and lesson plans centered on Martin Van Buren
Former PMVB intern Alexis Tomlinson presented her work on developing lesson plans using Van Buren documents at the recent Tennessee Council for History Education conference.
A good overview of a significant documentary edition: The Joseph Smith Papers Project.
youtu.be/RVeAp7zUU5s?...
Political cartoon of Andrew Jackson trying to free Van Buren from a log house.
![Political cartoon of Jackson and Van Buren, with a signpost reading "To O[ld] Kinderhook."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:thenrqqrn3qvnyoocptc3msa/bafkreiaeayitryfqthdjqijf3kja4ucbooskzh4se4ikm7dbcjswgovpgi)
Political cartoon of Jackson and Van Buren, with a signpost reading "To O[ld] Kinderhook."
Let us be clear: we will not be bullied by log cabin and hard cider humbuggery. Not now. Not ever.
To our loyal users: With your faith in us and with your steadfast support, we will be OK.
Colorized image of Van Buren holding a goblet of champagne and appearing inebriated
2. Some critics (many of them funded by Whig PACs, to be clear) have demanded that our project be renamed the Papers of Martin Van Ruin and that our logo incorporate a gold spoon. We categorically reject that demand.
1. Despite public outcry, we are going to continue to transcribe Van Buren's handwriting into text that can be easily read. Some members of the public have called for us to only publish documents in his original cursive, but we are standing firm on our commitment to accessibility. vanburenpapers.org
