Archives
November 2008
"That Most Fragrant Plant, the Mind": A Young Margaret Fuller Writes to Mary Peabody
Manuscript letter from the Nitzsche Unitariana collection
October 2008
"Bedazzling the Eyes...Like an Angel of the Sun:" Shem Drowne's Indian Archer Weathervane
Weathervane, 1716
August 2008
Sons and Daughters of Liberty Unite to Boycott William Jackson
Broadside, [between 1768-1770]
July 2008
The Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Boston, 18 July 1776
Letter from Henry Alline to his brother and sister, 1776
June 2008
"Cash Given for Handsome and Healthy Live Teeth"
Broadside about one of the first American dentists, 1796
May 2008
Governors William Bradford and John Winthrop discuss Anne Hutchinson, the "American Jezebel," and the Quaker martyr, Mary Dyer
Manuscript letter and memorandum of reply, 1638
April 2008
Thwarting the Slave-Hunters: Henry Ingersoll Bowditch and the Boston Anti-Man-Hunting League
Manuscript diagram, circa 1854-1859
February 2008
"Grown gray in your service": the 225th Anniversary of George Washington's Newburgh Address
Manuscript, 1783
October 2007
General Washington's Terrible Dilemma
Letter from George Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, 1782
September 2007
"I am here too soon": Francis Dana's Failed Attempt to Establish Diplomatic Relations with Russia During the American Revolution
Letter from Francis Dana to John Adams, 1781
May 2007
"The Other Emersons": The Correspondence of William, Ralph Waldo, Edward Bliss, and Charles Chauncy Emerson
Miniature portrait of William Emerson, circa 1833
April 2007
The "literary leather dresser": Thomas Dowse and his Library
Engraving of the Dowse Library at the Massachusetts Historical Society, circa 1856
March 2007
Eliza Susan Quincy: The Education of an Artist in the Early Republic
Watercolor drawing of Presidential birthplaces, 1822
January 2007
"All are gone who desire to do so": Robert E. Lee and Slavery
Manuscript letter from Robert E. Lee to George W. C. Lee, 1863
December 2006
Boston Burning: the Fire of 1787
Manuscript map of Boston drawn by Jeremy Belknap, 1787
November 2006
"She had always aspired to something noble": Caroline Dall and Her Extraordinary Diary
Daguerreoptype of Caroline Wells Healey Dall
September 2006
Indian deed for Boston, 19 March 1685
Quitclaim deed for the peninsula of Boston, 19 March 1685
August 2006
Sally Putnam visits the Aquarial Gardens
Sarah Gooll Putnam diary 2, 22-23 February 1862
July 2006
Will Bradley and the Art of the Bicycle
Catalog of the Overman Wheel Co., designed by Will Bradley
June 2006
Orphans of the Revolution: caring for the children of Dr. Joseph Warren
caring for the children of Dr. Joseph Warren
April 2006
The Massachusetts Pine Tree penny
Copper pattern coin designed and engraved by Paul Revere, 1776
March 2006
The last days of the telegram
Telegram from Dean Rusk to Leverett Saltonstall, 24 September 1963.
February 2006
"Boston Harbor a tea-pot tonight"
Tea leaves in glass bottle collected on the shore of Dorchester Neck the morning of 17 December 1773.
January 2006
Benjamin Franklin recalls Boston, the place of his birth
Letter from Benjamin Franklin to Samuel Mather, 12 May 1784
December 2005
The Darkest December: George Washington during the crisis of the American Revolution in 1776
Letter from William Tudor to Delia Jarvis, 24 December 1776
October 2005
Ralph Farnham, the Last Survivor of the Battle of Bunker Hill?
Ambrotype of Ralph Farnham, 7 July 1858
September 2005
Harvard in 1726: The First Prospect of an American College
The First Prospect of an American College
August 2005
Slavery, Bleeding Kansas, and a Test of Friendship
A letter from Abraham Lincoln to Joshua Fry Speed
July 2005
"A Covenant with Death and an Agreement with Hell"
Broadside advertising a Fourth of July rally sponsored by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1854.
April 2005
From the desk of Phillis Wheatley
Published in London in 1773, Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religous and Moral, was the first book of poetry by a Black American.
March 2005
Deborah Sampson, soldier in disguise
Paul Revere writes in support of Deborah Sampson Gannett, who served during the American Revolution disguised as a man.
January 2005
The Know-Nothing Party
The American Party (the Know-Nothing Party) comes to power in Massachusetts in 1855
December 2004
Benjamin Franklin's milk punch recipe
Benjamin Franklin sent a recipe "To make Milk Punch" to James Bowdoin, a Boston merchant and the future governor of Massachusetts, on 11 October 1763.
November 2004
Certificate of attendance at Dr. John Warren's course of anatomical lectures
One of two known surviving copies of a certificate of attendance at Dr. John Warren's anatomical lectures and demonstrations, engraved by Paul Revere.
October 2004
GOP campaign mugs
Mugs depicting the heads of the 1960 Republican candidates for President, Richard M. Nixon, and Vice President, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.