Submission Information
The Journal of the Early Republic is committed to publishing the best scholarship on the history and culture of the United States in the years of the early republic (1776–1861). This brief guide for authors and abbreviated style manual is intended for use by contributors to JER.
For the most part, we follow the Chicago Manual of Style. Where options exist in the Chicago Manual of Style, we indicate JER‘s preferred use. We suggest that authors refer to previous issues of JER to get a sense of our format and style.
Please submit your manuscript as a Word file e-mail attachment. To facilitate our policy of anonymous manuscript review, please go to “Properties” in the document and strip out any identifying information. Do include the title of the submission on the first page. The author’s name and address (both postal and e-mail) should appear in a separate Word document, along with a 250-word abstract.
Within the Word file, all lines should be double-spaced and unjustified, including quotations and notes. Articles should not exceed 10,000 words in length, including endnotes. NOTE: Use omnibus endnotes (see below).
When submitting manuscripts to the JER, authors are acknowledging that the submitted piece is not already being considered for publication elsewhere and will not be submitted for publication elsewhere during the JER’s review process. The JER reserves the right to withdraw a piece from consideration should this policy be violated.
Submit your manuscript to jer@shear.org. Correspondence regarding editorial matters should go to:
Journal of the Early Republic
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
1300 Locust Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Tel.: 215-732-6200
E-mail: jer@shear.org
Web site: http://jer.pennpress.org
We encourage you to use illustrations and can accept either glossy photographs (preferred) or 300 dpi TIF files. Supply each illustration with a caption, accompanied by a source line and such acknowledgments as are required. You are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions in writing to publish the illustrations.
Journal style calls for omnibus endnotes: that is, one endnote per paragraph. The total number of endnotes thus should not exceed the number of paragraphs. Quotations should be placed first in the endnote and in exact order of appearance. Citations, in exact order, should follow the quotations. Please ensure the accuracy of your quotations and citations. They must be verified before submitting the article.
Quotations from books and articles should cite the specific page(s).
1 Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 335.
2 Amanda C. Demmer, “Trick or Constitutional Treaty?: The Jay Treaty and the Quarrel over the Diplomatic Separation of Powers,” Journal of the Early Republic, 35 (Winter 2015), 593.
Quotations longer than five lines should be set off from the text by indenting both margins five spaces, but not by single spacing.
For books, give the name of the author(s) or editor(s) in normal order; the complete title of the work in italics; and, within parentheses, the number of volumes (if more than one), and the place and date of publication. Finally, include the page numbers you are citing.
Examples:
3 Christina Snyder, Great Crossings: Indians, Settlers, and Slaves in the Age of Jackson (New York, 2017), 161.
4 R. Carlyle Buley, The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815-1840 (2 vols., Indianapolis, 1950), 2: 160-61.
In edited volumes:
5 The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd (20 vols., Philadelphia, 1950-1982), 12: 171-201.
6 Boyd, Papers of Jefferson, 10: 180.
7 Lyra D. Monteiro, “Race-Conscious Casting and the Erasure of the Black Past in Hamilton,” in Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America’s Past, ed. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter (New Brunswick, 2018), 58-70.
8 Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffin, ed., Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago, 1990), 190-91.
In reprints or second editions, include the original date of publication:
9 Matthew Carey, Autobiographical Sketches. In a Series of Letters. Addressed to a Friend (1829; rep., New York, 1970), 22.
10 Eugene D. Genovese, The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy and Society of the Slave South (1961; 2nd ed., Middletown, CT, 1989), 35.
In subsequent citations, use ibid. if the citation immediately following is the same or ibid. with a different page number if the citation is identical except for the page reference. If other citations intervene, use the short title format.
Examples:
11 Brown, Republic in Peril, 17.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid., 21.
14 Buley, Old Northwest, 1: 95.
For articles, give the author’s name, article title, journal, date, and page reference. Months should be as follows: Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., May, June, July, Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and Dec. Use short title format for subsequent, nonconsecutive citations.
Examples:
15 Donald R. Hickey, “The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty of 1806: A Reappraisal,” William and Mary Quarterly, 44 (Jan. 1987), 65-88.
16 James L. Huston, “Virtue Besieged: Virtue, Equality, and the General Welfare in the Tariff Debates of the 1820s,” Journal of the Early Republic, 14 (Winter 1994), 523-47.
17 Hickey, “The Monroe-Pinkney Treaty,” 82.
Treat dissertations like books, except place the title within quotation marks and include the type of thesis and the institution where it was submitted within the parentheses containing publication data.
Example:
18 Thomas D. Hamm, “The Transformation of American Quakerism, 1800-1910” (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1985), 101-21.
For newspapers, the practice now, whether or not the city where the newspaper was published appears as part of the title, is to italicize or underline only the name of the paper, but not the city or town. The city should be indicated, along with the state, if needed, immediately before or after (within parentheses) the newspaper title. Section, page, or column need not be included.
Examples:
19 Albany (NY) Argus, May 13, 1816.
20 Indiana Daily State Sentinal (Indianapolis), Oct. 1, 1849.
21 Ibid., Oct. 12, 1849.
22 Albany Argus, June 22, 1816.
23 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), Jan. 13, 1820.
For manuscript collections, the intent is, as with books and articles, to give the author, date, and place of the item cited. This requires the name of the collection containing the item and the location of the collection. The location of the repository is given only in the first citation unless required for the sake of clarity.
Examples:
24 Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Apr. 27, 1795, Madison Papers (Library of Congress, Washington, DC).
25 William Thornton to John Quincy Adams, May 19, 1826, Adams Family Papers (Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston); Thornton to Nathaniel Macon, Feb. 7, 1812, Records of the House of Representatives (National Archives, Washington, DC).
26 Joshua Gilpin to Madison, June 25, 1810, Madison Papers.
Finally, in a miscellaneous category, note that in law case citations such as Marbury v. Madison (1803), the “v” is not italicized or underlined; that no apostrophe is used in dates such as the 1790s or the 1830s; that the possessive of proper names ending in “s” requires an “‘s”; and that both hyphens and capital letters are used sparingly. Thus, we do not capitalize words such as president or secretary of state unless they are used with a proper name (President Washington, Secretary of State Jefferson), nor do we capitalize words such as republic or state when they stand alone.
