W&M季刊制作全国新闻
一位学者在2009年4月的《威廉与玛丽季刊》上公布了他的历史性发现，他发现了以前不为人知的来自本杰明·富兰克林、寄给本杰明·富兰克林和关于本杰明·富兰克林的信件。 这些文件涉及1755年法印战争中的一段情节。 关于这一发现的报道已广为流传。 自从这篇文章发表在季刊之后，《纽约时报》、《洛杉矶时报》、《费城问询报》、《福克斯新闻》、《高等教育纪事报》和《华盛顿邮报》以及其他全国性新闻媒体都刊登了这篇文章。
“The documents are a super find,” said the Quarterly’s 访问ing Editor Scott Casper. “It’s really first rate 奖学金.”
Published for the first time the Quarterly, the documents shed light on a time during the French & Indian War known as “the wagon affair.” Alan Houston, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, unearthed the correspondence in the archives at the British Library in London while conducting research for his book, “Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement” in 2007.
卡斯珀指出，休斯顿把这个故事带到《季刊》上，是因为它的声誉。
“He submitted it to us because the William & Mary Quarterly is the best recognized journal of Early American History,” he said. “[Houston] wanted it published here.”
这些发现为了解早期美国历史打开了一扇独特的窗口。
“As a contribution to the corpus of writings by and to Benjamin Franklin, these letters are intrinsically important,” Houston wrote in the Quarterly essay. “They introduce three new Franklin correspondents—the Reverend John Hamilton, Colonel John Innes, and Captain Robert Orme—and dramatically add to existing correspondence with men such as Edward Braddock and William Shirley Jr. … These letters also offer a wealth of new details that affect modern understanding of Benjamin Franklin, the wagon affair, and Pennsylvania politics.”
“It is one thing to find a single letter, but to find a whole conversation is stunning,” Casper said in an announcement about the discovery. “It’s a really great story that a diligent scholar who knows what he’s looking at can find what nobody saw.”
《威廉与玛丽季刊》是奥莫亨德罗美国早期历史研究所的出版物。 1943年，威廉与玛丽学院和威廉斯堡殖民地基金会成立了早期美国历史与文化研究所，至今仍共同赞助该研究所的工作。 卡斯珀从2008年7月1日起就在《威廉与玛丽》季刊编辑克里斯·格拉索（Chris Grasso）那里工作。 他的任期将于2009年6月30日结束。