On Display: Documenting the Library's History

The State Library’s 200th anniversary might have been in March, but the celebration of our history continues in April with items on display our Collection Spotlight case. The March 1926 issue of Library Journal featuring an image of the State Library remains on display and is joined by a selection of items from our 100-year anniversary in 1926, along with a staff favorite photograph. These items will be on view in our main reading room from March 31 through May 5.

On display is the invitation and program for the celebratory event held in honor of the Library’s 100th birthday on March 3, 1926. From these two items, we gain a sense of the formality of the event. The invitation was issued by members of the Board of Trustees and "requested the honor of your presence at exercises to be held in the House of Representatives." From the accompanying program, we know that these "exercises" were primarily speeches. The event was presided over by Senate President Hon. Wellington Wells, with remarks from Governor Alvan K. Fuller and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Honorable Nathan Matthews. The keynote address was given by Dr. Roscoe Pound, Dean of Harvard University Law School, on the topic of The State Library in Modern Society. In addition to these speeches, the program also notes that within the Library was an exhibition of books, medals, and pictures.

This event does not differ greatly from the event that we held on March 3, 2026 in the Library's main reading room. Our 200th birthday event included remarks by Governor Maura Healey, Secretary of Administration and Finance Matthew Gorzkowicz, Senate President Karen Spilka, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, and Library Trustees Rep. Kate Hogan, Michele Capone, and Robert Cerasoli, who also presided over the festivities. Guests at our event were encouraged to sign our guestbook with well wishes, and this book, along with promotional materials from all our March events, will be added to our institutional records. 

Rounding out our display this month is a photograph that is a favorite among staff members and has been reproduced in our new exhibit, The State of the Library: 200 Years of Serving the Commonwealth. The photograph shows librarians and patrons in our main reading room in 1912. There are a number of photographs in our institutional records that document the reading room, staff, and events, though they primarily date to the 1950s and onward. This is one of the few photographs from the early 1900s.

Highlighting items from our institutional archives allows us to share our history as we continue to celebrate our 200th year, but these items also help us to mark Preservation Week, which occurs April 26 through May 2. The theme this year is Is This Thing On? Preserving Memories and Creating Archives. Preservation Week encourages institutions and individuals to focus on measures that can be taken to ensure the longevity of collection items, much like library staff one hundred years ago saved materials from the 1926 celebrations to add to the Library’s institutional memory. In your own life, if you have saved birthday cards, yearbooks, photographs, journals, or a myriad of other personal items, then you are also working to preserve history and add to the collective memory of your family and community. For materials that you want to save long-term, be sure to house everything in archivally sound materials that are free of acid and lignin. You can find a selection of at-home preservation tips here and always reach out to special.collections@mass.gov with any preservation questions, we are happy to assist as you create and maintain your own personal archives!

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

The State Library Turns 200: A New Exhibit and Collection Spotlight

We are excited to announce the opening of our new exhibit The State of Our Library: 200 Years of Serving the Commonwealth coinciding with our 200th birthday this month! As we celebrate this milestone, the exhibit showcases both the Library's impressive history and its current offerings. Using published documents, historical photographs and artifacts, and archival materials from the Library’s institutional records, the exhibit highlights our various services, resources, and technologies, as well as the changes and expansions to its physical space that have occurred over the last 200 years. 

Complementing our new exhibit is the 1856 edition of Ballou's Pictorial and a copy of Library Journal from March 1926, both on display this month in our Collection Spotlight case. Ballou’s Pictorial was a weekly periodical published in Boston from 1851 through 1859 (though up until 1855 it was published as Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion). We’ve written about this periodical in a previous blog post, but in a nutshell, it was full of interesting information to read or discuss, along with illustrations to examine. One of those illustrations is this full-page print of the “Interior View of the Massachusetts State Library” found in the May 31, 1856 issue. 

Illustration of the interior of the State Library
from Ballou's Pictorial, May 31, 1856

This image shows the Library, which at the time was only thirty years old, in its second location within the State House. Only one year prior, an addition to the building was completed that moved the Library to a central location and included two floors – a reading room and a balcony, as depicted in this image. The Library remained in this space for forty years, until another addition was completed in 1895 that moved the Library to its current location.

The same image was reproduced in the March 1, 1926 issue of Library Journal, a publication founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey (of Dewey Decimal fame) and still in existence today. Included in this issue is a feature on the State Library as it celebrated its 100th birthday. The article, titled “A Century of the Massachusetts State Library” gives information about the founding and a synopsis of the State Librarians up to 1926. The article ends with a note on the collections, stating “its collection of statute law is said to be unsurpassed except by that of the Library of Congress. Perhaps its most interesting original manuscript is that of Governor William Bradford’s “History of Plimoth Plantation,” otherwise known as “The Log of the Mayflower.” One hundred years after the publishing of this article, the Of Plimoth Plantation remains one of the treasures of our collection and we are excited to share that it will be on display during our upcoming Open House on March 25.

While Ballou’s Pictorial and Library Journal will only be on display in our Collection Spotlight case from March 2 through March 31, The State of Our Library is on view in the display cases outside of the Library through 2026. If these items piqued your interest in the State Library's history, there is even more to be found in the full exhibit, so be sure to visit us Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 5:00 to check it out, or click here to see the online version!

Elizabeth Roscio, Preservation Librarian

Exhibits Working Group

A Trailblazing Politician: Edward W. Brooke

Cover of Brooke's Birthday Ball souvenir

This February, our Collection Spotlight case features materials related to Edward W. Brooke. Brooke (1919-2015) served as Massachusetts' Attorney General from 1963-1967, earning the distinction as the first African American elected as attorney general in any state. He then went on to serve as Massachusetts' U.S. Senator from 1967-1979, earning more "firsts" as the first African American elected to the Senate by popular vote and the first African American elected to two Senate terms.

Three items that document Brooke's career in the 1960s are on display. The first is a photograph from the library’s own institutional records. Our institutional photographs record past exhibits and events held at the State Library, and this one, dated February 1963, shows Brooke (center, holding an item) with three unidentified men at an exhibit on Black History. The commemoration was known at the time of this photograph as Negro History Week, but beginning in 1970 was celebrated in communities and educational institutions as Black History Month, before receiving an official federal designation in 1976. While we cannot determine every item that is part of the display in the photograph, there are few that are identifiable. At the top center of the display is the program from the Thirty-Eighth Annual Celebration of Negro History Week (1963) for Proud American Day, on February 14. Directly below that is Brooke’s own portrait, displayed next to the cover of Fight for Freedom: The Story of the NAACP by Langston Hughes. And just below that looks to be a publication related to the memorial to Crispus Attucks on Boston Common. The rest of the display includes other publications, books, photographs, and an official Commonwealth of Massachusetts publication (maybe a proclamation?). Having a display of this nature is something that continues in the library each February, as our reference staff selects books and resources from our collection to celebrate Black history.

 

Moving further into Brooke’s career as attorney general, we are also sharing a souvenir booklet published in conjunction with a celebration ball held for his birthday on October 26, 1965 at the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Boston Hotel. With the heading of "Lawyer for Five Million Citizens,” the souvenir begins with four pages of career highlights, including investigating air and water pollution, improving policy surrounding eminent domain, and establishment of the Highway Laws Study Commission. Also included are photographs of Brooke with family, friends, and constituents. Additional pages include birthday wishes and sponsorship notices from groups and individuals throughout the Commonwealth. For our in-library display, we've opened the booklet to the page  with birthday greetings from individuals in Barnstable County. Adorning the cover is an artist’s rendering of Brooke, shown in the first image above.

Rounding out the display is the 1967 edition of Public Officers of the Commonwealth, also known as Bird Books, which provide photographs and biographical information for Massachusetts’ elected officials. The displayed edition is from Brooke’s first term as a U.S. Senator, showing his home address in Newton, his Republication affiliation, biographical information, organizational membership, and his public office positions. Brooke went on to serve in the U.S. Senate until 1979, and was largely known as a progressive Republican, meaning he leaned left on social policy and civil rights, but was fiscally conservative. Brooke was a strong advocate for civil rights, and while there are many achievements from his twelve years in the Senate, among the most notable was his co-writing of the Civil Rights act of 1968.

Read about Brooke’s work to establish Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday in a previous blog post, and for further reading, check out his autobiography, Bridging the Divide: My Life. This Black History Month, we are excited for the opportunity to share collection items related to one of Massachusetts’ most pioneering and influential politicians, and hope that you’ll visit the library between February 3 and March 3 to see these items on display.

Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

On Display: An Astronomical Diary or Almanack, 1771 and 1778

Our tradition of starting the new year off with historical almanacs on display in our Collection Spotlight case continues this year. We're featuring both the 1771 and 1778 editions of An Astronomical Diary; Or, Almanack by Nathanael Low.

These are the only two issues of Nathanael Low’s almanac in our collection, though he began publishing them in 1762 and continued into the 1800s. We are displaying our two copies closed and with facsimiles of the January pages so that we can highlight a small detail found on their respective front covers. Published leading up to and then during the Revolutionary War, 1771 is listed as "In the XIth (eleventh year) of the Reign of King George III" and then 1778 is described as "The second Year of American Independence, which began July fourth, 1776." As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence this year, it is moving to see this contemporaneous and significant change in wording.

The 1771 edition was printed and sold by Kneeland & Adams on Milk Street in Boston and the 1778 edition was printed by J. Gill on Court Street and T. & J. Fleet on Cornhill, all locations that are near the State House. On the cover of the 1771 almanac, Low lists the contents as containing information about eclipses, lunations, sun’s and moon’s risings and settings, courts in the four New-England Governments, feasts and fasts of the church, spring tides, judgement of the weather, time of high water, roads with the best stages or houses to put up at, some necessary rules with regard to health, and many other things useful and entertaining. These almanacs seem like a one-stop shop for all your needs in the 18th century! The header for each month also includes a few lines of verse from various poems, spread out over a few months. January leads off with the first few lines of “Friendship: An Ode” by Samuel Johnson. 

The 1778 edition includes much of the same practical information, but does begin with an address to the reader, on monopoly and extortion, in regard to the war that was being waged at the time of publication. While the young country was united in its feelings of patriotism and a shared enemy against the British, the essay draws a critical eye to the personal gain that some were making from the war, writing that “it is the poor chiefly that feel the calamitous effects of monopoly and extortion; tho’ it is evidence these men were never more necessary than now, never more useful, and their services were never yet of greater importance. Surely such men are worthy of some notice. They claim some attention. They deserve all possible encouragements.”

Almanacs largely included practical information or republished poems/verses from other sources, but they did also grant the author some leeway to include personal essays and anecdotes that were of interest, like the 1778 essay, which gives each almanac in our collection a slightly different slant. Nathanael Low was a physicist and astronomer who lived in Ipswich, Massachusetts before removing to South Berwick, Maine (which would have been part of Massachusetts at the time). He enlisted in the war in 1780, serving from Berwick. His home, built in 1786, is part of the South Berwick Village District, and you can read more on the Old Berwick Historical Society webpage.

January's pages from the 1771 edition (left) and 1778 (right)

Last year, these two volumes, along with other 18th and 19th century almanacs from our Special Collections holdings, were sent to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts to receive conservation treatment. They were cleaned and mended and then rehoused in custom enclosures. Their original binding remains intact and they are still somewhat fragile for handling, but while at NEDCC for treatment, they were also digitized and will be added to our digital repository in the coming months, making them available for researchers to examine them remotely (and safely).

If you are in the Boston area, then be sure to visit the library from January 6 through February 3 to see these almanacs on display, and catch up on all of past almanac posts here.

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Two Tea Documents on Display

In case you missed it, last December we exhibited a broadside concerning the shipment of tea that arrived in Boston Harbor in November 1773. The question of what to do with this tea culminated in its destruction in the harbor on December 16, a monumental event that we know of as the Boston Tea Party. We're happy to share that the broadside is once again on display this month, along with a companion letter that was issued by the Boston Committee of Correspondence at the same time.

The broadside describes meetings held on November 28, 29, and 30 when residents of Boston and nearby towns gathered to discuss the matter of the tea. Click over to our blog post from last year to read about it in detail.

Serving as a companion to the broadside is the letter issued by the Boston Committee of Correspondence, which serves as a brief cover letter for the broadside. Displaying them together helps us to interpret how news was disseminated throughout the Commonwealth during the Revolutionary Period. Committees of Correspondence were established throughout the thirteen colonies in the 1770s, and the Massachusetts committee got its start in Boston in 1772. Through letter writing, committees formed a network of communication throughout towns in the Commonwealth, as well as between the colonies. Massachusetts’ was headquartered in Boston, and this letter is signed by William Cooper, whose signature appears on many of the 18th century documents in our collection. He served as Boston’s Town Clerk in addition to being a member of Boston's Committee of Correspondence.

As the meetings regarding the shipment of tea were held in Boston, it was the Boston Committee of Correspondence to issue both the displayed broadside and the companion letter. The letter notes that the three-day meeting was moved from Faneuil Hall to Old South Meeting House (a detail also included in the broadside), by writing “On Monday last this and the neighbouring Towns as one Body convened at Faneuil-Hall, ‘till the Assembly were so numerous as occasion’d an Adjournment to the Old South Meeting-House, where it was computed there was upwards of 5000 persons.” Though many individuals attended the meeting in person, the news still needed to be spread throughout the Commonwealth, most pressingly, to provide an account of the matters that were voted upon. As such, an account of the meeting was printed as the broadside, and then it was sent along with the letter to various towns. We are thrilled for the opportunity to display these items together, as intended.

As the Preservation Librarian, I must include a note on the logistics of displaying an item two years in a row. Materials in our Collection Spotlight are only on display for a period of 30 days at a time, as we limit the amount of time that they spend out of dark, climate-controlled storage. The Collection Spotlight case has a microclimate that is conditioned to 68% relative humidity, and its viewing panel is “SmartGlass” which has UV filters and a layer of light-controlling film. When not in use, the glass portion of the case is dark, until it is activated by a button which lights the case for 30 seconds. This allows the case to remain dark for the majority of the time and only illuminated when a visitor wants to view the exhibited item, allowing us to safely display even our most sensitive items on a more frequent basis than if they were in a regular case. While the tea broadside won’t make an appearance every year, the conditions of the Collection Spotlight case ensure that it is safe to display it two years in a row.

Mark the December 16th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party by visiting the library to see these two documents on exhibited together. They are on display from December 2 through January 6. Huzzah!

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Soldiers from “The War To End All Wars”: World War I Photographs on Display

This month, our Collection Spotlight case commemorates Veterans Day by displaying five photographs from Photograph 359, a collection documenting over 8,000 World War I soldiers. The collection was compiled by the Boston Globe and donated to the library in 1935.

Many of the soldiers in this collection are from the 26th Infantry Division, also known as the Yankee Division because it was comprised predominantly of soldiers from New England states. The units most represented are the 101st, 102nd, and 104th infantry and the 101st and 102nd field artilleries, and the 101st and 301st engineers. Photographs of the following soldiers are displayed:

Clockwise from top-left 

• H.S. Kendall, 101st Engineers Co. F
• Serafino Mitolo, 301st Engineers
• Roger Sherman Dix, U.S. Army Air Service
• H.F. Carlson (pictured far right), Aviators known as “The Wild Beans”
• Joseph Janick, 104th Infantry Co. I

While some of the photographs in the collection are more relaxed or candid, like the images of Joseph Janick and H.F. Carlson, the majority of the images are formal portraits that also include identifying information like name, rank, unit, and division. Some of the photographs include a Boston Globe “cut-slip” on the back, which gives additional information about the soldier in the event that an article was published about them (this would typically be in the case of a promotion, an injury, a death, or a missing status). While there is no additional information about H.S. Kendall and Serafino Mitolo, there is a cut slip for H.F. Carlson (included here to the right) and an inscription on the back of the photograph that reads, “Trainor of San Antonio, Leo Peterson of Minneapolis, Murphy of Boston, Carlson of Boston; [Murphy and Carlson labeled] The Wild Beans.” (A nickname for these two men that likely came about because Boston is known for its beans!) The back of Joseph Janick’s photograph provides a good deal of biographical information and reads, “Northampton; Joseph Janick, Co I, 104th Reg.; Residence Easthampton; Born in Chicopee, Father Anthony Janick 73 Northampton St.; Easthampton; Enlisted May 23, 1917.”

A companion to the photographs is Ms. Coll. 65, “Data concerning about 39,000 men who served in World War I.” These are index cards that were also donated to the library by the Boston Globe in 1935. Not all of the soldiers in Photograph 359 have a corresponding index card, and sometimes there are index cards for individuals who are not photographed, but there are occasions where the two collections complement each other. For example, our display shows both the photograph and the index card for Roger Sherman Dix, which sadly includes the printing of his obituary:

Cadet Roger S. Dix, Jr. reported dead in France, was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Roger S. Dix of 208 Beacon St. Boston, and Greenbush, Scituate. The father of the young man is in the woolen business with offices at 620 Atlantic Av. Cadet Dix was 22 years of age, and was a member of the class of ’18 Harvard when he joined the air service.

Photograph 359 is fully digitized and can be searched in our digital repository. Also found in our digital repository is Photograph 360, which are group photographs of World War I soldiers. This collection also documents the Yankee Division, though it is smaller and is comprised of only 44 images. It was also compiled by the Boston Globe and donated to the library in 1938. At this time, the index cards that make up Ms. Coll. 65 are not digitized, though our Special Collections staff would be happy to assist with research of a specific name. These three collections are a rich genealogical and historical resource, and commemorate and honor the service of the soldiers who fought, and sometimes made the ultimate sacrifice, in World War I. They also remind us that each soldier had a unique and personal story, and by making this collection accessible, we continue to share and remember them.

It is fitting to display World War I photographs for Veterans Day since the federal holiday originated as Armistice Day, which marks the ending of World War I. In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, Allied forces and Germany signed an armistice to officially end hostilities. From 1919 onward, commemorations on November 11 promoted world peace and honored World War I soldiers. It officially became a federal holiday in the United States in 1938, and in 1954 it was changed to Veterans Day and expanded to honor American veterans of all wars, both living and dead. You can read more about Armistice Day and Veterans Day in our previous blog post.

We are closed in observance of Veterans Day on Tuesday, November 11 but be sure to visit us from November 4 through December 2 to see these World War I photographs on display.


Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

Farmer's Almanac - Spooky Edition!

Almanacs mark holidays throughout the year, and while the late 18th and early 19th century volumes in our collection don't mention All Hallows Eve or Halloween, that doesn't mean that their content doesn't veer a little creepy sometimes! This month, our Collection Spotlight case features The Farmer's Almanac from 1793, 1807, and 1816, all of which are on theme for October.

Looking for cures to remove freckles, pimples, or corns? Then grab your elderflower and oil of tartar and check out the 1793 edition for those recipes. While we don't have potions in our collection, these home remedies come close! We’ve transcribed the recipe “to cure a pimpled face and sweeten the blood below:”

Take jena, one ounce; put it in a small stone pot, and pour a quart or more of boiling water on it; then put as many prunes as you can get in, cover it with paper and set it in the oven with household bread; and take of this every day, one, two, three or more of the prunes and liquor, according as it operates; continue at least half a year.

For rural farmers without easy access to medical care, the home remedies provided in the almanacs were useful resources, even if they do read a little bit like spells! Pictured above are the other recipes that were published in the 1793 edition. 

Moving into the 1800s, we came across a section of useful tips in the 1807 edition that included instructions "For Restoring to Life Those Apparently Dead." The phrasing conjures up images of a coven performing a resurrection, or the actions that are going to lead to a zombie apocalypse. In actuality, it is medical advice for administering first aid if someone has drowned or has been exposed to the elements and frostbitten/frozen. After a drowning, though, we aren't sure how beneficial it would be to be "gently rubbed with flannel, sprinkled with spirits; and a heated warming pan, covered, lightly moved over the back and spine." You can read the full text in the image to the right.

Rounding out our almanac display is the 1816 edition open to October. Each month in the 1816 almanac included an illustration of its Zodiac sign and a short verse that related to the month. October’s Scorpio sign, represented by a scorpion, gives off decidedly creepy-crawly vibes. And the verse below creates a spooky atmosphere:

                            The pale descending year yet pleasing still,

                            A gentler mood inspires, for now the leaf

                            Incessant rustles from the mournful grove,

                            And slowly circles through the waving air.

For more information on The Farmer’s Almanac, and the content that doesn’t lean creepy, check out our previous blog post. And visit us from October 7 through November 4 to see these issues on display – if you dare!

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Back to School on Federal Street

September is synonymous with “Back to School” and with that comes the opportunity to share some education related materials in our Collection Spotlight case. This month, our items take us to Federal Street in Boston in 1797, where we are highlighting materials that represent two schools found on that street: Memoir of Mrs. Rowson, published in 1870 and about the founder of a girls school, and Regulations for the Government of the School in Federal Street, published in Boston in 1797. Both Mrs. Rowson’s school and the Federal School came to be not long after Massachusetts passed “An Act To Provide For The Instruction Of Youth, And For The Promotion Of Good Education” in 1789.

Schools in the 1790s would have been segregated by gender, and we know from the language of the Regulations for the Government of the School in Federal Street that this was a school for boys. The small pamphlet is only sixteen pages long and includes thirty articles adopted for the governance of the school and pupils. A notation at the end reads that at a meeting of the proprietors on September 13, 1797 the articles were voted on and adopted. You may notice that some of them are marked with an asterisks, this indicates that these articles are permanent, and do not need to be voted on again in the future. We are displaying the pamphlet open to the two pages that include Articles 3 through 8, which primarily address appropriate school behavior. It appears that the Federal School was rather strict and the students were held to a high standard! Three of the articles are transcribed below:

Article VI: That Silence be considered as an essential preliminary to the business of the day, and that no conversation be permitted in the School, but such as immediately relates to it.

 Article VII: That all kinds of social or private Amusement, during the hours appointed for Study or Instruction, be considered a transgression of the Rules.

 Article VIII*: That any Scholar who shall break a square of glass, or any of the furniture of the Academy, such as desks, benches, &c. shall be required immediately to repair it; or, in default, to pay twice the cost of such repairs.

We doubt that Articles VI and VII would be very popular with students today!

After reading through all the regulations, we tried to find additional information about the school. A search of Federal Street School or even “schools on Federal Street” did not turn up any information. A stamp on the interior pages indicates that the State Library acquired this item on December 29, 1887, so with that information we checked the section in the 1888 annual report that lists additions to the collections, in case that listing included any identifying information. Unfortunately, the annual report did not shed any light, as the pamphlets listing simply reads “School in Federal Street, Regulations for the government of the school. Bost., 1797.” It’s possible that this was a short-lived institution, or not one that was formally established. 

A school on Federal Street that we could find a reference to is Mrs. Susanna Rowson’s Academy for Young Ladies, which also dates to 1797. Susanna Rowson was born in England but immigrated to Boston at age five; she was an actress, author, playwright, and an educator and early proponent of education for females. Over the course of thirty years, she lived in Canada, England, and Philadelphia before returning to Boston 1797. It was at this time that she established the girls school on Federal Street, which was the first of its kind in Boston. We’re displaying her memoir open to the page that describes the school's first year:

On leaving the stage in the spring of 1797, Mrs. Rowson, under the patronage of Mrs. Samuel Smith, began a school in Federal street, and with but a single pupil, Mrs. Smith’s adopted daughter, continued it for one whole term. She was known in Boston only as a novel writer, as an actress – how could children be confided to her care? But the light cannot be hid; her motto was "tant que je puis," and persevering steadily, she came before the close of the scholastic year to number one hundred pupils on her daily roll; and applications were received for more than she could possibly accommodate.

The image of Susanna Rowson shown above is also found in her memoir. The school relocated to Medford and Newton before returning to Boston in 1809.

Beyond these two items, the State Library holds an impressive collection of education focused materials, in part because in its early days as a research library, it was under the care of the Board of Education. From 1849 until 1893, the Secretary of the Board of Education also served as the State Librarian. Check out the links below to read about some of the items that we’ve shared in past years, click here to read through an education timeline, and visit us from September 8 through October 7 to see these two items on display.

Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian

Historical Textbooks, 1775 through 1828

"Rules and regulations for the public schools in Quincy: also, some remarks on the due observance of the rules, addressed to parents.” Quincy School Committee, September 1, 1835

“Rules and Regulations to be observed by the Teachers of the Public Schools in Dorchester” and “Order of Exercises at the Dedication of the Building and Installation of the Teacher of the High School” Dorchester Public Schools, 1810 and 1852

Vacation Inspiration Courtesy of Gleason’s Pictorial!

There's still a solid month of summer left, which means there's time for one more vacation getaway! If you’re looking for inspiration, then turn to our August Collection Spotlight case. Displayed this month is the August 7, 1852 issue of Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion, with a picture of the Pleasant Mountain House on the first page.

Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion was published by Frederick Gleason in Boston from 1851 through 1859, though in 1855 its name changed to Ballou’s Pictorial when Maturin Murray Ballou took over. As per its name, you might find an issue of Gleason’s in someone’s drawing room, also known as a withdrawing room. These were formal spaces in a home in which leisure activities (like reading, needle point, or musical performances), or private or business conversations would occur. For the homeowner or guests, this weekly periodical would provide interesting information to read or discuss, along with illustrations to examine. And in case there is any confusion about where Gleason’s was published, the masthead includes a picture of Boston Harbor and the city skyline, with the dome of the State House prominently displayed on a slightly exaggerated Beacon Hill!

In keeping with the time of year, we’re displaying an issue that was published this month in 1852. Shown on the first page is an illustration of Pleasant Mountain and Pleasant Mountain House, located in Denmark, Oxford County, Maine. Pleasant Mountain rises 4,000 feet above sea level, and the text under the image describes the height as follows, “it is novel to look down upon the clouds, to watch the shower as it passes over different towns and villages, to see it creep around the base of the mountain, or up its side, to hear the rain below you, and be all the while yourself in sunlight.” The text concludes with a description of a hotel that was constructed atop the mountain by Joseph S. Sargent “a beautiful and commodious hotel, while the mountain has become one of the most favorite resorts in New England.” For those itching to visit, the text also makes a point to state that it is only forty-five miles from Portland, a very convenient location if you’re looking to get away!

Note that Pleasant Mountain is located in Denmark, Maine. A fun fact about Maine is that there are over 40 towns named after other countries or cities abroad! In addition to Denmark, there is Peru, Bath, Norway, Lisbon, Mexico, Naples, and Paris – just to name a few. Keep an eye out for some when you’re on your next road trip through Maine!

Gleason’s Pictorial is on display in our reading room from August 5 through September 2, so stop by to take a look. And if you’d like to read about a few of other New England resorts, check out our previous blog post on Souvenir of New England’s Great Resorts published in 1891, and a bird’s-eye view map of Magnolia on the North Shore between Manchester-by-the-Sea and Gloucester.

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Hereby Declaring the Declaration of Independence on Display!

Happy July! As the country looks to celebrate Independence Day, we are joining in by sharing a timely item in our Collection Spotlight case. Visit us throughout the month to see a version of the Declaration of Independence that was printed as part of The Perpetual Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1789.

For previous July celebrations, we’ve shared two other versions of the Declaration found in our collection. Both of these versions were printed less than two weeks after the Declaration was ratified by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776.

• A broadside version that was printed by Ezekiel Russell in Salem on July 17, 1776. Read more in our blog post.

• A newspaper version that was printed for The New-England Chronicle by Edward E. Powers and Nathaniel Willis on July 18, 1776. Read more in our blog post.

The version displayed this month was printed a few years later, in 1789 by Adams and Nourse, who were the official printers to the General Court. It is in a volume of the Perpetual Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which, as stated on the title page, were published by the order of the General Court and cover the period from the commencement of the Constitution in October 1780, to the last Wednesday in May, 1789. Prefacing the laws are reprintings of a number of foundational documents. In addition to the displayed Declaration of Independence, there are also printings of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the Commonwealth, the Treaty of Peace between Great Britain and America, and the Constitution of the United States. 

Following the documents, the laws are organized into seven categories: Part 1: The Public and Private Rights of Persons; Part 2: Real and Personal Estate; Part 3: Courts and Forms of Process; Part 4: Criminal Matters; Part 5: Trade and Commerce; Part 6: Taxes, etc.; Part 7: Militia Regulations. It ends with a section of "miscellaneous." This is a comprehensive source representing the state of Massachusetts laws from 1780 through 1789, and if you want to peruse the full text, a digitized copy is available through the Internet Archive.

Visit us from July 1 through August 5 to see this version of the Declaration on display, and best wishes from the State Library for a festive and safe Independence Day!

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian