Online Resources What is this? Our online resources are sets of digitized items which have been organized either around a common topic, such as the American Revolution, or to highlight a specific collection, such as the papers of Thomas Jefferson.
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Full title: Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive
Featuring selections from the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society, this digital collection (entitled, Thomas Jefferson Papers: An Electronic Archive) includes Jefferson's manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence, Farm Book, Garden Book, book catalogs, and architectural drawings.
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Full title: The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection
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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Full title: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses
With a fast and comprehensive search tool new in summer 2010, this is the 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 This digital edition includes all text of the historical documents, all editorial text, and a single index with consolidated entries for the 16 printed Adams Papers indexes.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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Full title: Thomas Jefferson: An Electronic Archive Architectural Drawings
There are over 400 architectural drawings in the Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Approximately 245 of these drawings (including notebook pages) are plans for Jefferson's home, Monticello. The collection also contains Jefferson's drawings for municipal and civic institutions: the University of Virginia; capitol buildings for Washington and Richmond; and the president's house.
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Full title: Correspondence of Mercy Otis Warren and Hannah Winthrop
The letters exchanged between Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) and Hannah Winthrop (baptized 1727-1790) provide a remarkable window into the daily lives of families living through the challenges of revolution and nation building. Explore history through the eyes and pens of those who participated in the extraordinary events of the period! These intimate letters (57 different letters written between 1752 and 1789) offer readers an opportunity to connect with the past by imagining themselves in the narrative. The correspondence between Warren and Winthrop reveals the important roles that women played in the revolutionary era.
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Full title: Highlights from the Saltonstall Family Collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society
The papers, photographs, art, and artifacts of the Saltonstall family, one of the founding families of Massachusetts, chronicle five centuries of family history and involvement in public life, from before the European settlement of America through the 20th century. Saltonstall family collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society include papers of Leverett Saltonstall (1783-1845), mayor and U.S. representative from Salem, Massachusetts; Eleanor "Nora" Saltonstall's letters home to her family while serving as a volunteer in France during World War I; and the personal and political papers and photographs of U.S. Senator Leverett Saltonstall (1892-1979).
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Full title: The Siege of Boston: Eyewitness Accounts from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society
This website presents more than one dozen accounts written by individuals personally engaged in or affected by the Siege, including soldiers, prisoners (one imprisoned Loyalist and one Patriot), and residents along with the record of a town meeting during the Siege. These first-hand experiences recounted in 25 manuscripts (approximately 300 pages of letters, diaries, and documents from the Massachusetts Historical Society collections) give the human side of the American Revolution, a perspective often overlooked in histories that describe the Siege as a series of military events.
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Full title: African Americans and the End of Slavery in Massachusetts
This website features 117 items from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, including historical manuscripts and early printed works that offer a window into the lives of African Americans in Massachusetts from the late 17th century through the abolition of slavery under the Massachusetts Constitution in the 1780s.
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Full title: Nora Saltonstall Papers and Photographs from the Highlights from the Saltonstall Family Collections
During World War I Eleanor "Nora" Saltonstall (1894-1919) volunteered in France, first with the Bureau of Refugees and Relief (a division of the American Red Cross that provided lodging for refugees), and then with an American Red Cross dispensary. Presented here are a selection of Nora's letters to her family describing her experiences written from November of 1917 through the end of 1918, her passport, and photographs taken by and of Nora, including one taken just weeks prior to her death in the summer of 1919.
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Full title: Looking at the Civil War: Massachusetts Finds Her Voice
As part of the Massachusetts Historical Society's commemoration of the Civil War sesquicentennial, each month a different item from the collection will be selected to share voices of the people of Massachusetts as they experienced the war 150 years before. When the project concludes in April 2015, fifty-two items from our collection will tell the story of Massachusetts' role in the Civil War in an online exhibition.
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Full title: Perspectives on the Boston Massacre
Read and examine materials offering a range of perspectives about the Boston Massacre. Included are letters, diary entries, pamphlets, broadsides, newspaper accounts, printed depositions, orations, trial notes, and even bullets recovered from the site. Use a comparison tool to closely view any two of seven featured images side by side.
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Full title: Object of the Month
A different web display each month showcasing an item from the collections of the MHS; sometimes the features relate to anniversaries, or convey the variety of historical sources within the collection, as well as help the public understand American history.
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Full title: Charles Francis Adams, Sr.: The Civil War Diaries
This website presents searchable electronic transcriptions of diary entries written by Charles Francis Adams, Sr. between 1861-1865. On the eve of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Charles Francis Adams, Sr. minister to the Court of St. James's. He arrived in London on the very day Great Britain recognized the Confederacy as a belligerent. In 1863 Adams convinced the British government to prevent Confederate ironclad ships, built in Liverpool, from leaving port, thereby maintaining British neutrality. Charles Francis Adams, Sr., like his father (John Quincy Adams) and grandfather (John Adams) kept a sequence of detailed diaries. The transcription of Charles Francis Adams's diary entries from 1861-1865 has not been verified against the original manuscript, nor has any annotation been provided. The MHS makes this content available as a valuable research source but with the caveat that it is not yet an edition as established by modern documentary editing standards.
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Full title: Marian Hooper Adams: Selected Photographs and Letters
This website presents 48 photographs (one entire album) from the Marian Hooper Adams photograph collection, five selected letters from the Hooper-Adams papers, and two letters by Henry Adams (from a new acquisition) in which he reflects on his wife's death. This website also provides information about Clover's approach to photography by presenting a digital facsimile of a notebook Clover kept from May 1883 to January 1884 in which she listed many of her photographs and commented on exposures, lighting, and other technical details.
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Full title: Massachusetts Considers Ratifying the U. S. Constitution
The following web presentations of selections from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) relate to the debate about the ratification of the U. S. Constitution in Massachusetts (including the District of Maine). These materials have been assembled for a workshop, Ratification! The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.
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Full title: Boston By Manuscript
The following web presentations of selections from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) relate to Boston history, places, and events. The following primary sources offer details and perspectives that should complement and supplement the existing knowledge base Boston experts have already established regarding the events and history of the city.
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Full title: Battle of Bunker Hill
Web exhibition about the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 featuring personal accounts and eyewitness descriptions of the battle, along with contemporary maps, drawings, engravings, broadsides, and artifacts, either preserved by the participants or found on the battlefield.
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Full title: Massachusetts Historical Society: The Case for Ending Slavery
This website features more than 50 primary sources from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Library of Congress that reveal how slavery, and debates about slavery, contributed to the formation of the United States. Using letters, diaries, broadsides, artifacts, songs, legal notebooks, and photographs representing a variety of viewpoints, this site highlights the complex nature of ideas about slavery and freedom that circulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Available are lesson plans, study questions, and resources for educators.
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Full title: Coming of the American Revolution
In the years between 1764 and 1776, America truly became a nation. Using letters, diaries, broadsides, pamphlets, newspapers, maps, and engravings, this website brings those tumultuous years to life for students of all ages. The site is organized around fifteen key topics and features more than 150 documents from the Society's collections. Additional resources include primary-source-based lesson plans developed by middle- and high-school educators, study questions, and contextual essays.
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Full title: Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive
This searchable digital collection (entitled, Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive) 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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Full title: Celebrating Lincoln
In recognition and celebration of the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln in 2009 the Massachusetts Historical Society is hosting a public exhibition about Lincoln and Massachusetts, as well as online displays of manuscripts, artifacts, portraits, and sculpture drawn from the MHS collections.
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Full title: The War of 1812: Items from the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society has a rich collection of materials relating to the War of 1812, as it was the first major military conflict that the United States was involved in after the Society's founding in 1791. In recognition of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, the Society presents a selection of broadsides, letters, and artifacts.
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Full title: China, America and the Pacific (an Adam Matthew digital resource)
This digital resource containing collections from the Massachusetts Historical Society as well as content from other repositories explores the cultural and trading relationships that emerged between America, China and the Pacific region between the 18th and early 20th centuries. This resource, published by Adam Matthew, is available to researchers who visit the MHS in person and use our reading room. It is also available in many college and university libraries.
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