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’ eleventh president (1845–49) and to publish an annotated edition of selected letters in print and online. Students, scholars, and all interested in U.S. 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 project has published thirteen volumes of the Correspondence of James K. Polk. All are held by numerous libraries and are available for purchase. They also are available online for free. In 2019 the project completed work on volume 14, which covers the last year of Polk’s presidency and his brief retirement. It will be released in the fall of 2020. In the meantime, you can read most of the letters for that volume, without annotation, online.
Please explore this website to learn more about Polk and the project. You can find the project’s Twitter feed @Polk_Project.