Massachusetts Historical Society Building
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Show map of Massachusetts Show map of the United States
Location	1154 Boylston Street Boston,Massachusetts, U.S.
Coordinates	42°20′47″N71°5′26″W / 42.34639°N 71.09056°W /42.34639; -71.09056
Built	1899
Architect	Edmund M. Wheelwright
Architectural style	Colonial Revival
Website	masshist.org
NRHP reference No.	66000770[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966
Designated NHL	December 21, 1965

TheMassachusetts Historical Society (MHS) is a major historical archive specializing in earlyAmerican,Massachusetts, andNew England history. The Massachusetts Historical Society was established in 1791 and is located at 1154Boylston Street inBoston, Massachusetts, and is the oldesthistorical society in the United States.

The society's building was constructed in 1899 and added to theNational Register of Historic Places in 1966.^[1] In 2016, theBoston Landmarks Commission designated it aBoston Landmark.

The society was founded on January 24, 1791, by ReverendJeremy Belknap to collect, preserve, and document items of American history. He and the nine other founding members donated family papers, books, and artifacts to the society to form its initial collection. Its first manuscript was published in 1792, becoming the first historical society publication in the United States. The society incorporated in 1794; signatories includedWilliam Baylies,Jeremy Belknap,Alden Bradford,Peleg Coffin,Manasseh Cutler, John Davis, Daniel Davis, Aaron Dexter, John Eliot,Nathaniel Freeman,James Freeman,Thaddeus Mason Harris, Isaac Lothrop, George Richards Minot, John Mellen Jr., Thomas Pemberton,William Dandridge Peck, John Prince, Ezekiel Price,James Sullivan,David Sewall,Peter Thacher,William Tudor, Samuel Turell, Dudley Atkins Tyng,James Winthrop, Thomas Wallcut,Redford Webster, and William Wetmore.^[2] Indeed, the society claims to have been the only historical collection in the United States until establishment of theNew-York Historical Society (1804) and theAmerican Antiquarian Society (1812), after which time the society's collecting activities began to focus primarily onBoston andNew England. In 1849,Frances Manwaring Caulkins became the first woman elected to the society's membership.^[3]

"The society, for several years after its organization, met in the attic ofFaneuil Hall; afterwards rooms were occupied in Hamilton Place, and then inFranklin Street. In 1833 ... quarters on Tremont Street were occupied" in the building of theProvident bank through the 1890s.^[4][5][6] The society's current building in theBack Bay was built in 1899; it was designated aNational Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of the society's distinctive contribution to historic preservation.^[7]

Today the society continues to collect, preserve, and communicate historical information about Massachusetts and the United States. It is now organized in five departments: Library, Publications, Education and Public Programs, Research Programs, the Adams Family Papers, and Administration. Major collections include:

• Adams Family Papers (1639–1889) - material relating to PresidentJohn Adams (1735–1826) and First LadyAbigail Adams (1744–1818), as well as other family members includingCharles Francis Adams (1807–1886), PresidentJohn Quincy Adams (1767–1848), First LadyLouisa Catherine Adams (1775–1852),Charles Francis Adams (1835–1915), andHenry Adams (1838–1918). Among other papers, the collection includes correspondence, diaries, literary manuscripts, speeches, legal and business papers, and John Adams' handwritten copy of theDeclaration of Independence.
• Thomas Jefferson - the library holds Jefferson's handwritten copy of theDeclaration of Independence and the Coolidge Collection, a collection of "Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts" containing thousands of pages of Jefferson's correspondence, manuscripts of writings,Monticello records including account books and journals, and more than 400 of Jefferson'sarchitectural drawings.
• Other manuscripts and printed texts - approximately 12,000 biographies and more than 10,000 local histories, as well as newspapers and broadsides includingJohn Dunlap's July 4–5, 1776,Philadelphia printing of theDeclaration of Independence. Other notable manuscripts includeJohn Winthrop's manuscripts on the early settlement ofNew England;Paul Revere's account of his ride; and theFrancis Parkman manuscripts dealing withFrench Canada.
• Artwork - paintings byJohn Singleton Copley (1738–1815),Sarah Goodridge (1788–1853),Chester Harding (1792–1866),Alonzo Hartwell (1805–1873),Samuel Stillman Osgood (1808–1885),John Smibert (1688–1751), andRichard Morrell Staigg (1817–1881), as well as sculptures byThomas Ball,Richard Saltonstall Greenough,Henry Dexter, andHiram Powers.

The society continues to produce scholarly books, but now augments these publications with digital editions available through its website and other online resources. TheMassachusetts Historical Review has been published annually since 1999.^[8]

Thefellows of the Massachusetts Historical Society are elected and serve as the society's legal governing body.^[9] Notable fellows include:^[10]

• American Antiquarian Society
• List of National Historic Landmarks in Boston
• National Register of Historic Places listings in southern Boston, Massachusetts

Notes

Bibliography

• Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920)."Massachusetts Historical Society" .Encyclopedia Americana.

Further reading

• A short account of the Massachusetts Historical Society: originally prepared by Charles Card Smith, together with the act of incorporation, additional acts and by-laws and a list of officers and members. January 1791-June 1918.
• The act of incorporation: with the additional acts and by-laws of the Massachusetts Historical Society: with a list of officers and resident members. Boston: printed for the society, 1882.
• Thomas Boylston Adams. "Here We Have Lived: The Houses of the Massachusetts Historical Society".Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. 78 (1966)

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMassachusetts Historical Society.

• Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1792-1939, Vol. 1-78 - 7 series, Vol. 10 of each series is an index for the series
• Series 1 index
• Series 2 index
• Series 3 index
• Series 4 Index (Vol. 1-10)
• Series 5 index, p.331
• Massachusetts Historical Society
• Review of "Adams Family Papers" website.Teachinghistory.org.
• "Life Portrait of John Quincy Adams", fromC-SPAN'sAmerican Presidents: Life Portraits, broadcast from the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 18, 1999
• "Massachusetts Historical Society" .New International Encyclopedia. 1905.

• State historical societies of the United States
• 1791 establishments in Massachusetts
• History of New England
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• Back Bay, Boston
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• Buildings and structures completed in 1899
• National Historic Landmarks in Boston
• Buildings and structures in Boston
• Clubhouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
• National Register of Historic Places in Boston
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