Adams Papers Digital Edition Named Outstanding Academic Title of 2009
Published: Friday, 29 January, 2010, 4:02 PM
The editors of Choice, a publication of the American Library Association and the leading reviewer for academic and scholarly titles, have chosen the Adams Papers Digital Edition as one of their Outstanding Academic Titles of 2009. Reviewed in the October 2009 issue of Choice, the Adams Papers editorial project was lauded as "a significant accomplishment in historical and scholarly editing." This digital edition of the Adams Papers is made available through the University of Virginia Press’s Rotunda imprint and is one of a collection of founding era documentary editions, including the papers of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, that are presented with cross-platform searchability. The review notes that Rotunda’s "American Founding Era Collection" presents a "wealth of topics and characters [that] offers a particularity and historical framework that allow a deeper understanding of the Colonial and early national periods of American history."
The Massachusetts Historical Society’s Publications Department, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Harvard University Press, worked closely with UVA Press to present these 30 volumes in the rich and multilayered "American Founding Era Collection" and is pleased to see it recognized as a title for libraries to acquire through the subscription service. In keeping with the MHS policy of presenting our materials to the widest possible audience, the Adams Papers Digital Edition is also available as a stand-alone resource at the MHS website, free of charge.
Recent Grant Announcements—January
Published: Friday, 29 January, 2010, 4:00 PM
Adams Papers Awarded Fellowship from NHPRC
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission has awarded the Adams Papers a $59,500 Historical Documentary Editing Fellowship to begin in the summer of 2010. The one-year fellowship not only offers an excellent opportunity to a post-graduate historian to train in all aspects of documentary editing through the correspondence and writings of one of America’s first families; it also provides the Adams Papers editorial project with another editor to contribute to the rigorous publication schedule of one scholarly volume per year. With a stipend of $45,000 plus benefits, the editorial fellow will work on three series—Adams Family Correspondence, Papers of John Adams, and the Diary and Autobiography of Louisa Catherine Adams—as well as the ongoing digitization of the edition. The Adams Papers has received this grant several times since the project’s founding, most recently in 2007, and has greatly benefited from working with and training new historians in the field of documentary editing. The full job description will be posted at the MHS website. Interested applicants are invited to check back during the month of February.
Recent MHS Grant Announcements—December
Published: Monday, 28 December, 2009, 12:40 PM
The Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation and the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati
Just in time for the New Year, the MHS received two key grants to promote research and make its collections more accessible.
The Trustees of the Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation approved a grant of $60,250 to the Society's William L. Saltonstall Memorial Fund to help improve access to the Saltonstall Family Papers, which span four centuries of family history. This project was of great significance to Bill, one of the Society's most valued Fellows, dedicated trustees, and wisest friends. The grant will allow the MHS to properly house the collection, provide conservation of the most threatened items, and describe the collection in a searchable guide at the MHS website. It will also underwrite the cataloging of the 400 books in the Saltonstall Library. In addition, the MHS will create a Saltonstall family page at the MHS website that will pay tribute to Bill and his contributions to the Society. The site will include links to the new guide to the Saltonstall Family Papers created during this project and to the guides (already in existence) to the papers of Senator Leverett Saltonstall and Eleanor “Nora” Saltonstall, and to the Saltonstall-Lewis-Campbell family papers and photographs. The site will also present a selection of digitized documents, family photographs, and paintings from the Saltonstall family collections.
The MHS also received $11,000 from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati to present digital images and searchable transcriptions of diaries, letters, and other primary sources related to the Siege of Boston at the MHS website and to fund the continuation of a Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati short-term fellowship at the MHS. The Society of the Cincinnati was the first organization to support a research fellowship at the MHS, and each year the fellowship allows a researcher to spend four weeks at the Society investigating the period of the American Revolution.
The military story of the Siege of Boston is already well known. The goal of the project is to present the accounts of those personally affected by the siege, including soldiers, residents, and imprisoned loyalists to show the more human side of the occupation. The Society will present color, digital images of more than 25 manuscript items—approximately 300 individual pages—with searchable transcriptions at the MHS website. The primary sources documenting the personal stories associated with the Siege of Boston will be valuable resources for scholars, students, and teachers, as well as the casual visitor to the MHS website. In addition, they will also be a nice complement to the Society's successful Coming of the American Revolution website.
MHS Announces New Essay Collection—
Remaking Boston
Published: Monday, 28 December, 2009, 9:59 AM
A 2006 MHS conference on the environmental history of Boston has recently resulted in an important collection of essays. Remaking Boston: An Environmental History of the City and Its Surroundings, edited by Anthony N. Penna (Northeastern University) and Conrad Edick Wright (MHS), offers contributions by geologists, botanists, urban planners, a cartographer, and a geographer as well as historians that paint a valuable picture of the city's complicated environmental development since the arrival of European settlers in the early 17th century. Copies are available from the publisher, the University of Pittsburgh Press.
MHS and SJC to Present Teacher Workshops
on the End of Slavery
Published: Monday, 28 December, 2009, 9:53 AM
The MHS is partnering with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to present a two-day teacher workshop based on court cases and documents dealing with the end of slavery in both Massachusetts (after the Revolution) and in the country (before the Civil War). The first day will be held at the John Adams Courthouse in downtown Boston, home of the SJC, where a Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court and a senior attorney (Director of Civic Education) will discuss the enduring impact of selected cases from a legal perspective. On the second day, at the MHS, participants will work with key documents from the collections that have been paired with Library of Congress documents to enhance an understanding of activities and events leading to the emancipation of slaves in this state and others. Teams will complete and share lesson plans created around the documents.
The workshop will take place during the public school vacation weeks on Wednesdays and Thursdays: 17-18 February and repeating on 21-22 April from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM. There is no charge for the workshop, which is part of a Teaching with Primary Sources project funded by the Library of Congress. Educators can earn 10 PDPs for their participation. Registration is required: education@masshist.org or (617)646-0557.
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