Robert Gould Shaw’s sword, whereabouts unknown since his death at the Assault on Fort Wagner, is among Civil War items recently donated to the MHS. Full story.
View the sword at the MHS beginning Tuesday, July 18th 
A collection of 14 thought-provoking essays, opinion pieces by national leaders in the fields of academic and public history. Details and eBook
Explore 175 years of the Irish in Boston from the founding of the Charitable Irish Society in 1737, through famine relief efforts, to a mass migration movement, decades of community building, and a rise in political power.
Details
Library Closed; Galleries Open:
Labor Day
Saturday, 2 September 2017
Building Closed:
Labor Day
Monday, 4 September 2017
As the nation’s first historical society, the MHS strives to enhance the understanding of our nation’s past and its connection to the present, demonstrating that history is not just a series of events that happened to individuals long ago but is integral to the fabric of our daily lives. More about the MHS
The History and Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Tour is a 90-minute docent-led walk through our public rooms. The tour is free, open to the public, ...
The Liberator’s Legacy explores popular memory of William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and their fellow abolitionists in the decades following the Civil ...
In his long, cosmopolitan life, Galbraith wrote thousands of letters. Richard P. F. Holt has selected the most important of these and made them available in print for ...
View a selection of our favorite items from the MHS collection.
Browse a list of our digital collections or limit your search by topic, format, or time period.
The Adams Family Papers consist of the writings of two presidents—John Adams and John Quincy Adams—and their families. View documents and transcriptions, biographies, a timeline, and more.
The Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, containing almost 9,000 pages of correspondence, personal manuscript volumes, and more than 400 architectural drawings, is the largest gathering of the personal papers of our third president.
Comprised of manuscripts, photographs, books, pamphlets, broadsides, maps, graphics, newspapers, works of art, and artifacts, MHS collections are unparalleled in their importance for the study of American history.
On Monday, 21 August 2017, a solar eclipse will occur! Many people in Boston are looking forward to 2:46 pm when they will (weather permitting!) experience what it is like when the ...
Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here: Introduction | January | February | March | April | May June | July Gertrude ...
