After a huge amount of work, lasting more than a year (especially on the part of our workaholic whiz kid site designer, Jim Graham), I am delighted to  announce that we are now posting live a completely overhauled American Leadership Database.  At last, this is a resource that begins to live up to the vision we had for it when we posted the first version many year ago.

To see the entire Database, go here: http://www.lifecourse.com/rdb/overview.php.  As before, this database contains records for nearly 15,000 American leaders: every Senator, Representative, Governor, President, Vice President, and Supreme Court Justice since 1789.

How does it differ from the feature we offered before?  As follows:

  • All of the tables and charts in the database are now dynamically generated.  This means that they automatically change when the underlying data are changed (due to updates with each new election or, from time to time, corrections to historical data).
  • The entry of new data (stored online) has now been great simplified.  This, combined with dynamic linking, makes updating the database much easier.  The current site is updated through the 2008 election.  Further updates will be quick and simple to perform.
  • We now provide a much greater variety of graphical representations of our data.  And these are more easily accessible through pull-down menus.
  • We provide more (non-dynamic) data on Revolutionary-era leadership (1765-1789).
  • Finally—and by far the most important in terms of blood, sweat, and tears—we now offer an interactive tool that allows users to define their own birth cohort or cohorts or their own Congress or Congresses and (if you like) filter by state or region.   The user then obtains a full analysis by Congress, by birth year, by party, by longevity, by average age of entry, etc.

I hope you explore this site a bit.  After I started trying out the beta version, I personally found I was addicted.  Any question you can imagine can be answered—from how many  New England leaders who reached age 18 during the Presidency of Andrew Jackson became Republicans:

To how many Representatives from the Pacific states born in 1901 to 1910 belonged to the Democratic Party.

Try out some custom queries on the user defined page and you will see what I mean.

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