Fully-Digitized Manuscript Collections Now Available

The Massachusetts Historical Society is pleased to announce that seven collections relating to women in the public sphere have been digitized thanks to funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act grant as administered by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.  The grant allowed us to create high resolution images that are accessible at the MHS website, as well as preservation microfilm created from the digital files.

The seven collections range from small (one thin folder of documents kept by the Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society records) to large (7,534 images of records kept by the Woman's Education Association) and date from 1827 (Society for the Employment of the Female Poor Trustees' reports) to the 1930s (Rose Dabney Forbes papers as well as the Woman's Education Association records).

These collections contain records of organizations primarily run by women concerned with social issues--anti-slavery, women's education, the peace movement, treatment of the poor, and anti-suffrage.  A total of 16,003 digital images depict all the pages of these seven collections and are available as sequences of images linked to manuscript collection guides.

Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society records, 1837-1838
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0427

Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, 1895-1920
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0121

New England Freedmen's Aid Society records, 1862-1878
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0423

Rose Dabney Forbes papers, 1902-1932
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0212

Society for the Employment of the Female Poor trustees' reports, 1827-1834
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0428

Twentieth Century Medical Club records, 1897-1911
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0411

Woman's Education Association (Boston, Mass.) records, 1871-1935
http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0393

The work for the grant included the detailed review of all the documents in the collections, preparation for digitization and the creation of metadata for the master images.  The majority of the high-quality uncompressed master digital images were created at MHS with some images created by the Northeast Document Conservation Center.  The production steps required for the web presentation were completed by MHS staff.

Please explore these new collections!