MHS News

Recent MHS Grant Announcements—December

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.