A website from the Massachusetts Historical Society; founded 1791.
Library: Library Collections

About the Library Collections

Adams Family Papers

Books & Pamphlets

Broadsides

 Early Imprints

Manuscripts

Maps

Newspapers

Numismatics & Artifacts

Photographs

Works of Art
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Newspapers

The newspaper collection at the Massachusetts Historical Society encompasses 300 titles, ranging from scattered issues of foreign newspapers and newspapers printed in other states to extensive holdings of early Boston papers. Records for all newspapers currently held by the MHS are available in ABIGAIL.

Highlights of the Newspaper Collection
Enlarge The MHS holds unique copies of many early Boston newspapers, such as the Boston News-Letter (1704-1776), the first continuously published American paper, and James Franklin's New-England Courant (1721-1727), which includes the first appearance of teenage Benjamin Franklin in print. The collection also has many 19th-century Massachusetts titles, including a complete run of the Liberator (1831-1865), William Lloyd Garrison's antislavery newspaper, and the 1870 Trans-Continental, a paper "published daily on the Pullman Hotel Express between Boston and San Francisco," the first transcontinental railroad trip originating in Boston.

Enlarge Newspapers on Microfilm
The microfilm collection of newspapers contains copies of many early American titles as well as later Boston and Massachusetts titles, including some 19th-century titles that are not in the MHS collection of original newspapers. Records for newspapers on microfilm are available in ABIGAIL.