A selection of photographs providing a unique visual record of life and work on sugar plantations in Cuba during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These photographs were taken and collected by Boston merchant Edwin F. Atkins and other members of his family are from the Atkins Family Photographs. Edwin Atkins was a dominant force in the U.S.-Cuban sugar market and his firm, E. Atkins & Co., established sugarcane plantations along the southern coast of Cuba near the cities of Cienfuegos and Trinidad.
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A selection of photographs taken by Francis Blake, an innovative man who lived in Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. In the 1880s Blake designed a focal-plane shutter that allowed him to take photographs with exposure times of 1/1000 to 1/2000 of a second and he took stunning stop-action images of trains, pigeons, horses, bicyclists, and athletes.
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This web exhibition includes carte-de-visite photographs taken in the 1860s and 1870s depicting posed portraits of Cheyenne, Pawnee, Sioux, and Ute men and women. Selections of Adam Clark Vroman's arresting photographs of the landscape and native peoples of the American Southwest in the 1890s showcase the wide tonal range and pleasing aesthetic quality of platinotypes. Also included are dramatic images taken by Joseph K. Dixon during the Wanamaker expeditions, 1908-1913, used to advocate for the rights of Native Americans.
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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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This web exhibition explores how cartoonists have depicted issues relating to voter rights through United States History. Political cartoons have long served to provoke public debate, illustrating opinions of the day and poking fun at those in power. From early in the 19th century, arguments over voting rights—who votes and who counts the votes—have been depicted in cartoons, especially with the rise of illustrated newspapers and magazines with a national circulation before the Civil War.
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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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This digital resource presents primary sources on the rise of mass tourism from 1850 and the 1980s. Printed sources and manuscripts from the Massachusetts Historical Society as well as other repositories are included. Published by Adam Matthew, this resource is available to researchers who visit the MHS library in person. It is also available at many college and university libraries.
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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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This web feature highlights Thomas Nast’s remarkable life and career through a biographical series created specifically for MHS by eight contemporary Boston-area cartoonists. Starting with his arrival as a young German immigrant in NYC, this pictorial biography follows Nast through his successful career as the illustrator of immensely popular images within Harper’s Weekly magazine. Nast was famous for his support of the Union cause in the Civil War and his relentless campaign against New York’s Tammany Hall political machine. The eight biographical cartoons were drawn by members of the Boston Comics Roundtable, a community of comics creators.
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Browse online presentations of early photographs from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS). These images include portraits taken by some of Boston's most notable photographers as well as depictions of locations in and around Boston.
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