MHS RECEIVES NEH SUSTAINING CULTURAL HERITAGE COLLECTIONS GRANT
BOSTON, MA (June 2010) The Massachusetts Historical Society is pleased to announce that it has received a Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections grant for $351,784 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The grant will be used in a multi-phase effort to analyze risks to the collections and to identify appropriate preventive preservation actions necessary for collection protection. As well, we are very proud to announce that the project has been designated a National Endowment for the Humanities “We the People” project. “We the People” is an initiative that encourages and strengthens the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture through the support of projects that explore significant events and themes in our nation's history and culture and that advance knowledge of the principles that define America.
“The MHS is pleased that the NEH has recognized the importance of our collections in this way as we would not be able to properly fulfill our mission if our collections were lost or damaged due to disaster or theft,” commented MHS President Dennis Fiori. “Maintaining access to our collections through proper preservation and continued security measures is of utmost importance as we experience growing use from researchers visiting the library and interested citizens attending public programs and exhibitions.”
About the National Endowment for the Humanities
Created in 1965 as an independent federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities supports learning in history, literature, philosophy, and other areas of the humanities. Additional information about the National Endowment for the Humanities and its grant programs is available at www.neh.gov. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this release do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About the Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts Historical Society is one of the nation’s preeminent research libraries, with collections that provide an unparalleled record of the vibrant course of American history. The Society holds an extraordinary assembly of personal papers from three presidents–John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Thomas Jefferson–as well as accounts of the lives of thousands of ordinary Americans and their families. With millions of pages of manuscript letters, diaries, and other documents, as well as early newspapers, broadsides, artifacts, works of art, maps, photographs, and prints, the MHS offers a wide-ranging perspective on the United States from the earliest beginnings of the nation to the present day.
Since its founding in 1791, the MHS has fostered research, scholarship, and education. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of our nation’s past and its connection to the present. Through fellowships for scholars, meticulous research volumes, seminars, conferences, teacher training programs, as well as lectures, tours, open houses, and exhibitions, the Society demonstrates that history is not just a series of events that happened to individuals long ago but an integral part of the fabric of our daily lives.
The MHS is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday 9 AM to 4.45 PM; Thursday 9AM to 7.45 PM; and Saturday 9AM to 4.00 PM.
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MHS Offers Winning Bid
for Abigail Adams Letter in Recent Sotheby’s Auction
BOSTON, April 15, 2010—The Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) is delighted to announce its recent acquisition of a letter written by Abigail Adams from Quincy, MA on October 18, 1800, to Dr. Benjamin Rush, responding to criticisms against her husband during the presidential campaign. The letter was auctioned at Sotheby’s on April 14 as part of the James S. Copley Library, a collection of letters and documents from the Revolutionary period signed by such notable figures as John and Abigail Adams, Samuel Adams, Ethan Allen, John Hancock, and George Washington. The acquisition was made possible by a gift to the MHS from an anonymous donor.
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MHS Announces A New Website: Uncover Passages Written by Jefferson Hidden for Centuries
BOSTON, MA (April 8, 2010) Launched in conjunction with the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday on April 13 is a new website developed by the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS). The manuscript of Thomas Jefferson's only full-length book, Notes on the State of Virginia, is now online (www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/notes) and accessible in ways that it never has been before. Passages that previously were hidden from view due to the methods used by Jefferson for inserting changes onto handwritten pages are now visible to website visitors for the first time. The website provides evidence of not only Thomas Jefferson's meticulous approach to writing but also an ingenious way to view passages that have been obscured for centuries.
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“A More Interior Revolution”
MHS Exhibition celebrates the Women of the American Renaissance
BOSTON, March 15, 2010— On Monday, March 22, to commemorate the bicentennial of Margaret Fuller’s birth, the Massachusetts Historical Society will open a new exhibition titled “A More Interior Revolution”: Elizabeth Peabody, Margaret Fuller, and the Women of the American Renaissance. Guest curator Megan Marshall, author of the acclaimed biography The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism, has selected letters and journals written by Fuller and Peabody, together with writings and works of art created by other women who participated in the literary renaissance in New England between 1830 and Fuller’s death in 1850.
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