Papers of William Short
Univerity of South Carolina
Rembrandt Peale (American, 1778–1860), Portrait of William Short (1759–1849), 1806, oil on canvas, Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William & Mary; Gift of Mary Churchill Short, Fanny Short Butler, and William Short.
The Papers of William Short is a born-digital documentary edition focusing on William Short (1759-1849), who was a knowledgeable and successful U.S. fiscal agent and diplomat in Europe, an enterprising businessman and philanthropist, and an early advocate of alternatives to slavery in the United States. This publication aims to bring to light this native Virginian, who lived 17 years in Europe and then almost half a century in Philadelphia, and who throughout his life, showed his capability to navigate confidently and with vision the choppy waters of an Atlantic world in full convulsion and reconfiguration, as well as an early United States in transformation and construction.