Read more
Based in the History Department at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the James K. Polk Project sought to locate all extant letters by or to the United States's eleventh president (1845-49) and to publish an annotated edition of selected letters in print and online. Students, scholars, and anyone interested in US history can use these resources to learn about one of the most consequential presidents and about a key period in the country's development. Since beginning its work in 1958, the Polk project published fourteen volumes of the Correspondence of James K. Polk. All are held by numerous libraries and hardcover editions are available for purchase through the University of Tennessee Press. They also are available online as open access titles. In 2019 the project completed work on the fourteenth and final volume, which covers the last year of Polk's presidency and his brief retirement.
Volume I includes correspondence from the brief period Polk served in the Tennessee General Assembly and his first few years in the US House of Representatives. It contains a significant number of letters to and from Andrew Jackson (with whom Polk developed a lasting friendship and political alliance) and concerning other notable Tennessee politicians, especially David Crockett and Samuel Houston The greater bulk of this volume, however, deals with Polk and his middle Tennessee constituents, with his law practice in Columbia, Tennessee, and with his immediate family As the oldest son, he served as co-executor of his father's complicated estate and handled the estates of three younger brothers, all of whom, tragically, died in 1831.
About the author
Since 1958, various professors and editors associated with the University of Tennessee's Department of History have worked to annotate and make available to the public the correspondences of James K. Polk. In 2019, the Polk project concluded under the direction of Michael David Cohen.
