Adams at the MHS

This searchable digital collection presents images of manuscripts and digital transcriptions from the Adams Family Papers including the complete correspondence between John and Abigail Adams, the diary of John Adams, and the autobiography of John Adams.

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This digital collection presents images of the 51 volumes of John Quincy Adams' diary in the Adams Family Papers. Adams began keeping his diary in 1779 at the age of twelve and continued until shortly before his death in 1848. There are over 14,000 pages within these diaries and a date search tool is available.

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Digital edition of the content of the previously printed editions of the Revolutionary-era Adams Papers, a long-standing documentary edition prepared at the Massachusetts Historical Society. This digital edition includes all text of the historical documents, all editorial text, and a single index with consolidated entries for the 16 printed Adams Papers indexes. Another forthcoming digital edition will present the Winthrop Papers, a documentary edition created at the MHS.

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On 27 June 1809, President James Madison appointed John Quincy Adams (JQA) minister plenipotentiary to Russia. On 5 August 1809, JQA set sail for St. Petersburg. In addition to writing long entries in one of his diary volumes, JQA also summarized each day of his trip in his line-a-day diary volume. Since 5 August 2009, the Massachusetts Historical Society has been posting John Quincy Adams's line-a-day diary entries on Twitter, exactly 200 years after his journey across the Atlantic. This web page contains many links to online resources about the diary and the Twitter project.

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The Adams Family Papers is the name of the most important collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society. The are the manuscript documents that members of the Adams family created and saved and include papers by and to John Adams, Abigail Adams, as well as previous and subsequent generations.

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Researchers will find this finding aid to microfilm (608 reels) containing the full Adams collection to be useful. The microfilm is available at the MHS and other locations; (see the online list of institutions owning the microfilm).

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Coming in January 2011: one easy-to-use online catalog that will allow researchers to find over 100,000 records describing Adams family correspondence. The control file project is currently under development as a collaborative project with the archivists, editors, and historians of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

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The Adams Papers editorial project, based at the MHS, founded in 1954 to prepare a comprehensive published edition of the manuscripts written and received by the family of John Adams of Quincy, Massachusetts.

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Digital edition of the content of the previously printed editions of the Revolutionary-era Adams Papers, a long-standing documentary edition prepared at the Massachusetts Historical Society. This digital edition includes all text of the historical documents, all editorial text, and a single index with consolidated entries for the 16 printed Adams Papers indexes. Another forthcoming digital edition will present the Winthrop Papers, a documentary edition created at the MHS.

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Information about the more than forty volumes in four series published by the Adams Papers editorial project. These volumes are available from the Harvard University Press.

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The documents selected for "One President's Adolescence" span the years 1773 to 1782, a crucial time in the life of both young John Quincy Adams and of the young republic. A brief chronology accompanying this unit (which can also be reached through the main portal page) places significant events in American history alongside milestones in JQA's life:

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Abigail's War is a student activity book based on letters exchanged between John and Abigail Adams. It promotes writing and mathematical skills at the same time as it helps students relate to the world of the American Revolution.

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This curriculum unit comprised of 10 units helps middle-school students learn to use primary sources. Students will unravel the events leading up to the Boston Massacre, and discover John Adams’s philosophy of justice and also explore the life of John Quincy Adams and his work against slavery, including the Amistad Affair.

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This curriculum unit for high school English students revolves around the question: What was life, particularly the writing life, like for an American woman before, during, and after the founding of our nation? By using Abigail Adams's correspondence and diaries, this curriculum enables students to explore primary source documents to learn about the historical, cultural, and ethical role of women in early America.

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In this unit students will learn how the Federalist and Republican parties, represented by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, were founded, what they believed, and their struggle for the hearts and minds of the American people. Students will also learn how, despite their very different views, members of these two parties shared an idealistic vision and belief in the future of the United States, that in the end transcended vicious party rivalries.

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This curriculum unit helps to provide high school students with insight into the Adams family members and their combined efforts in the realm of American foreign policy between 1781 and 1863. This collection of primary source materials, culled from the Adams Family Papers, is divided into lessons that cover four major periods and events of early American history.

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This curriculum unit engages students in an exploration of John Adams’s thinking about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a republic. Each lesson is divided into three sections: Documents, Contemporary issues, and Service-learning extensions.

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Two curriculum units (one about the Battle of Bunker Hill and one about the smallpox epidemic) examine life in Boston, Massachusetts during the American Revolution as experienced through the letters of John and Abigail Adams. Between 1762 and 1801, John and Abigail wrote more than 1,100 letters to each other, recounting some of the most important events in American history. They are personal narratives that relate to John's political challenges and Abigail's day-to-day struggles, most significantly during the Battle of Bunker Hill and the smallpox epidemic.

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