COLLECTION GUIDES

Search Collection Guides

Search descriptive text of all our collection guides.


To search as a phrase, surround your terms in quotes. Personal names may appear in reverse order in some guides (e.g., “Adams, Charles Francis”) or in other variations (e.g., “Charles F. Adams”). When using quotes, try searching variations to retrieve all instances of a personal name.

About Collection Guides

The Society's collection guides are narrative descriptions of the context, arrangement, and contents of manuscript, photograph, and other collections. The tool above searches the text of all online guides, and more are added regularly. The online collection guides are also accessible from collection records in the Society's main catalog, ABIGAIL. Some collection guides are not yet available online; please contact the reference librarian to inquire about having a copy of a paper collection guide sent to you.

Search crowdsourced transcriptions of a few digitized collections.


To search as a phrase, surround your terms in quotes. To search for a specific date use quotation marks around a date formatted as “YYYY-MM-DD”. For example, type “1862-12-31” to search for transcripts of content dated 31 December 1862. 

About Crowdsourced Transcriptions

Search for keywords in transcriptions that were created by volunteers and checked by library staff. Collections that have been transcribed:

  • Luman Boyden missionary journals
  • Sarah Gooll Putnam diaries, volumes 1-8
  • John Rowe diaries

Additional collections will be available for keyword searching in the future. Please consider becoming a volunteer transcriber. Sign up at www.masshist.org/mymhs