The ITPS Archival Research Database

The ITPS Archival Research Database holds, expands, and analyzes the Thomas Paine National Historical Association Collection (TPNHA) housed in the Ryan Library at Iona University in New Rochelle, New York.

The Archival Research Database is a work-in-progress, with approximately half the TPNHA collection, specifically items focused on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, currently included. Over the course of the 25-26 academic year, additional materials, including the Van Der Wyde family papers, photography collection, and institutional records related to the activities of the association in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, will also be incorporated. For more information on the TPHNA Collection, including whom to contact with questions regarding the physical archive, visit the TPNHA Collection page on the ITPS Research Portal.

TPNHA Dashboard

As of Spring 2025 the TPNHA Collection's inventory is finalized. We estimate that there are approximately one thousand items in the collection, as recieved by Iona University. In the meantime, you can follow our progress in real time. We will only provide item specific details for item records that have completed our rigorous review process.

As of right now, the ITPS Archival Research Database contains records for:

All item records are marked according to their cataloging status as complete, incomplete, review, or reviewed. Here is a breakdown of the 576 records by current status.

This map shows the place of publication/creation (when known) for each item in the Archival Research Database.

About

With generous funding from the Gardiner Foundation and the Lapidus Initiative for Early American Inquiry, the ITPS is in the process of a multi-year project to create a Digital Archive from the physical TPNHA Collection. The Archival Research Database contains the foundational metadata for the future Digital Archive and provides Iona University students, faculty, and staff a way to create and enhance inventory records while also answering sharing the in-progress database as a resource to interested researchers and the public.

The ITPS is working closely with the Ryan Library, especially Natalka Sawchuck, Director of Libraries and ITPS Affliate Librarian, without whom this project would not be possible. Additional cataloging in OCLC has been performed by Diana Kiel, Coordinator of Technical Services. Our thanks to Dr. Tricia Mulligan and Iona Provost Office for their support.

The next phase of the database includes an extensive cross-check of the of all physical items in the TPHNHA archive, and the inclsuion of the Van Der Weyde collection, an estimated four hundred items, consisting of photographs from American photojournalist and TPNHA member Van Der Weyde and his wife, photographer Katherine MacNamee Van Der Weyde, and materials related to the activities of the organization in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centurie from past TPNHA meetings.

Credit

ITPS Fellows and Ryan Library staff have been working on the inventory data underlying the Archival Research Database for years. for years. Former post-doctoral fellow Dr. Barry Goldberg was responsible for creating a finding aid for the William and Katherine MacNamee Van der Weyde Papers. Former University of Virginia Press post-doctoral fellow Dr. Alexi Garrett provided further details for item entries. See the table below for how many item records have been created, enhanced, or reviewed by each team member. Our deep thanks to Michael Crowder and Ala Montgomery for their contributions.

Technical Specifications

The Archival Research Database has been built in Django and PostgreSQL, with D3.js and Leaflet used to create visualizations based on live data. To see the code, visit the GitHub repository. All code has been released under GPLv3. For questions regarding the software, please contact Dr. Jason Heppler.