Researching State Hospitals and Using Filters In Our Digital Collections

You might already be aware that accessing old patient records is a topic that has featured in the news recently, for example, the Boston Globe published an article discussing the issue back in August. The Globe article mentions recent bills created to address the issue along with the Overview and Recommendations report published by the Special Commission on State Institutions (SCSI). The Commission’s findings bring to light the state’s mishandling of sensitive records that document the (mis)treatment of patients. The Commission also presents suggestions for ways the state can take responsibility and acknowledge the people effected as well as how to better handle these records moving forward. A copy of the SCSI’s review and recommendations can be accessed here.

In addition to this overview, the Commission produced a full report that contains a detailed history of state hospitals in Massachusetts as well as the known repositories that contain surviving records. The report also includes citations to key legislation that led to the development and administration of these facilities. In light of the SCSI’s publication of this report, I thought it would be helpful to revisit our past blog post on Old Massachusetts Hospital Records and Patient Files which discusses where and how researchers can access patient records. Spoiler Alert: the State Library does not have patient files; however, there is sort of an exception to this – as the SCSI discovered in their research: a report published in 1848 Senate Bill number 47. Although it doesn’t contain detailed patient information, this report does list the names of individuals whose institutionalization was paid for by the State from the year 1838 to 1847.

The 2017 blog post lists several depositories (also listed in the SCSI’s report), namely: the Massachusetts State Archives, Harvard University’s Countway Library of Medicine (especially the Warren Anatomical Museum and Collection), and the City of Boston Archives. The SCSI confirmed that the State Archives has records from the following institutions:

Boston State Hospital
Metropolitan State Hospital
Grafton State hospital
Boston Psychopathic Hospital
Medfield State Hospital
Bridgewater State Hospital
Fernald State School
Westborough State Hospital
Danvers State Hospital
Northampton State Hospital
Tewksbury State Hospital

The Commission determined that surviving materials not kept at the State Archives technically are (or should) still held by Department of Mental Health and the Department of Developmental Services. These are some of the other repositories the that the Commission found which contain records:

• The Yakovlev-Haleem Collection at the National Museum of Health and Medicine
• UMass Lowell -Tewksbury Almshouse Intake Records
• University of Massachusetts Amherst - Belchertown State School Friends Association Records
• University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School Lamar Soutter Library - Samuel Bayard Woodward Collection
• Brandeis University’s Robert D. Farber University Archives -Samuel Gridley Howe Library

The Massachusetts Historical Society also has materials connected to the McLean Asylum for the Insane, Worcester State Hospital, and the Channing Asylum in Wellesley. Information on these MHS collections and more, is available here: Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society Related to Disability.

The Commission’s research didn’t just stop at tracking down patient records. There is a whole section on issues surrounding burial records (starting on page 165 of the report), but that is a topic for a whole other blog post. In the meantime (which will probably be a while), I strongly recommend reading the SCSI’s full 366-page report – a copy of which can be accessed in our Digital Collections, here. If the page count is too daunting, don’t worry! There is also an 18-page plain text summary of the report which is available here.

So, where does the State Library fit into all of this? As mentioned earlier – we don’t have patient records, but we do have the legislation that created and shaped these institutions – including bills that were enacted (or not enacted), and the acts that got passed by the General Court. As noted, with Senate Bill 47, some of this legislation contains commission reports. If you want to learn more about researching legislation, please consult our Guide to Compiling a Massachusetts Legislative History | Mass.gov. We also have publications issued by these institutions. Our collection of digitized material from Massachusetts state hospitals can be accessed here. These publications are typically the Annual Reports for the institutions, and the contents are primarily concerned with the finances and administration of the facility as reported by the hospitals to the General Court.

Let’s take a closer look at our digital collection from the Northampton State Hospital. Pro Tip: currently, the Sort By feature under Settings on the left of your screen defaults to “Most Relevant” -- you can change that to put them in chronological order.

In these reports you can find general statistics (e.g., age, sex, etc.) regarding the patient population during that year (below is an excerpt from page 26 of Northampton State Hospital’s 1870 annual report):

You can also find information on the expenses of the institution (below is an except from page 32 of Northampton State Hospital’s 1870 annual report):

For instance, the table above shows how many pillowcases were allotted to the 2nd Hall of the men’s quarter.

Sometimes, drawings and floor plans are included (images below are from Northampton State Hospital’s 1874 Annual Report):

Obviously, this data lacks information about the personal stories of the individual patients committed to these institutions – something that more likely would be kept in patient records – which are currently located at the State Archives (see Archive Grid). These files cover a period ranging from 1858 to 1993 (when the hospital closed).

Navigating our Digital Collections 

Our collections are organized in a similar way to how an archival collection is organized. This is a helpful tool for conceptualizing the organization of Massachusetts government.

The collections are nested within one another. Massachusetts State Hospitals → Northampton State Hospital → Annual Reports. If there were non-Annual Report materials, there would be another heading like the Annual Reports one you see in the image, e.g. “Newsletters,” “Board Meeting Minutes,” or even “Documents” (our catchall for monographs and other one-off materials that don’t fall into a specific category).

Check if there are more collections, if it says “Show more” you know that there are more collections with hits for “Northampton State Hospital."

You’ll notice multiple collections called “Annual Reports.” That is because these refer to annual reports from different agencies. We are working on fixing this because, as you can imagine, just about every agency publishes an annual report. 

For right now, you are going to need to click into each of these to find out to which they belong.

Clicking randomly into one of these Annual Reports, we end up in the Worcester State Hospital Annual Reports which evidently had reports that mention the Northampton State Hospital:

For the most part, these hits are from reporting on staff (named) and patient (unnamed) transfers to and from different hospitals. Other collections, such as House Documents or Senate Documents include bills which will help you compile legislative histories on laws that mention the state hospital. If a Digital Collection is a year, e.g. 1946, that represents the Acts and Resolves passed from that year.

If you run into issues navigating our collections, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Reference.Department@mass.gov. One of our Reference Librarians will be happy to assist!


Maryellen Larkin

Government Documents Reference Librarian

Sources:

Boston Globe Editorial Board (August 29, 2025) “Open up records from state mental institutions: Healey’s bill would give public access to records over 75 years old,” Boston Globe. Accessed September 11, 2025.

Report to the Massachusetts Special Commission on State Institutions, 2025.

Special Commission on State Institutions Overview and Recommendations, 2025. 

Author Talk with Paul M. Collins, Jr.

• Supreme Bias: Gender and Race in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings by Christina L. Boyd, Paul M. Collins, Jr., and Lori A. Ringhand
• Wednesday, December 10, 2025. 12pm - 1:00pm
• In-person and Virtual event. No registration required.
• State Library of Massachusetts - Room 341, Massachusetts State House
• Livestream on YouTube
• Books available for purchase; $15.00 cash or Venmo

The State Library of Massachusetts Author Talks Series welcomes Paul Collins as our December speaker. Collins is a contributing author of the 2023 book Supreme Bias: Gender and Race in U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.

Supreme Bias was the recipient of the 2024 C. Herman Pritchett Award, sponsored by the American Political Science Association (APSA) - Law and Courts Section and the 2024 winner of the Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title, sponsored by the American Library Association.

This is an in-person and virtual event. The livestream available on our YouTube channel courtesy of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Broadcast Services. Tune in at noon!

Be sure to sign up for our Author Talks newsletter and follow our social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and X) for the latest information on our visiting authors. If you are unable to attend, the recording will be posted to our YouTube channel to watch anytime - view all past recordings here!

About the book: Supreme Bias takes a deep dive into the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Specifically, the book highlights the extreme bias that female and people of color nominees face during the judicial confirmation process. The book compiles quantitative and qualitative evidence showing that gender and racial bias affects the interviews; women and people of color are more frequently interrupted, subject to stereo-typed base questioning, and overall critiqued in more negative terms than their white, male counterparts. Despite this alarming evidence, Supreme Bias and its authors provide solutions to combat such bias even in the highest court.

About the author: Paul M. Collins, Jr. is Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Collins holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Binghamton University and a B.S. in political science from the University of Scranton. He served as the inaugural Director of Legal Studies at UMass from 2014-2020. Collins works with both undergraduate and graduate students; his research focusing on inequality in our legal system.

Collins is a respected author and scholar; his articles appearing in law reviews and journals, and he currently sits on the editorial board for the Journal of Politics. He has secured grants from the Dirksen Congressional Center and the National Science Foundation for his research. In addition to being an author of four books, Collins' work and commentary has appeared on CNN, USA Today, his writing also included on SCOTUSblog, Slate, and the Washington Post.

Please visit Paul’s blog and UMass site for a complete professional biography, a full list of his academic articles, and for more information on his research and teaching.

As always, this author talk is free and open to all. Assisted listening devices will be made available upon request. If you are able to join us in person for this talk, attendees will be able to participate in a question-and-answer session with the author. Books will be available for purchase; $15.00 cash or Venmo.

Any questions or concerns, please email us at AuthorTalks.StateLibrary@mass.gov. For more information on the State Library Author Talks series, please visit our site.


April Pascucci
On behalf of the Author Talks Working Group

Hawks in the Library!

This month, Audubon's Goshawk and Stanley Hawk (plate 141) take off from the pages of Birds of America and land in the library's reading room. Hawks are birds of prey that are also known as raptors, and are distinguished by their hook-shaped beaks and  powerful sharp talons. Included in the print are the adult Goshawk (front standing, facing left) and the young Goshawk (perched on the branch), with the adult Stanley Hawk in the back, facing right. The Goshawk can be found in Massachusetts, but it is not commonly seen as its numbers have dwindled due to deforestation. You can read more about the American Goshawk on the Commonwealth's Division of Fisheries and Wildlife webpage.

For Native American Heritage Month, we try to feature a bird that has a symbolic meaning for the Indigenous community, and in this case, hawks signify power, courage, and strength. Last year we shared the wild turkey and the year before we shared the Great Blue Heron, both with a connection to the Wampanoag Tribe.

Visit us from November 12 through December 9 to see the hawks on display.

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Resource Spotlight: Digging into MassTrac

One of our more popular resources here at the State Library is MassTrac, a bill tracking database that contains information on recent legislation. While MassTrac goes back to the 1995-1996 session, much of the information in this database is more comprehensive from 2005 to present. You’ll find bills and their bill history information, committee agendas, session calendars, public hearing notices, legislator press releases, Governor's news, state agency news, and legislator contact information.

After a librarian logs you into MassTrac, you’ll notice a toolbar at the top with tabs for General Court, Transcripts, Bills & Laws, Budgets, News/Media, and Resources. Each tab drops down to give you more options to choose from, to better assist you in your research. I wanted to specifically point out the Transcripts and the Bills & Laws tabs. The Transcripts tab allows you to search for transcripts of committee hearings, floor debates, Regulatory hearings, special commission hearings, and more. Once you select the type of transcript you’re looking for, you can narrow down the session year and then search for keywords. The same can be done for the Bills & Laws tab: choose a session year and then do a keyword search.

 As we all know, sessions and hearings can be long. To have to watch an entire recording or read through a transcript just to find the part on your topic can be a tedious task. MassTrac has made this easier by allowing you to search within videos and written transcripts. You can keyword search within a video and MassTrac will bring you to the timestamp where that keyword was discussed. You can also click on a word in the typed transcript and MassTrac will bring you to that point in the video. MassTrac also allows you to download transcripts as a PDF. For more information on finding transcripts, be sure to check out our previous blog post.

This year MassTrac has released some exciting new features. MassTrac now has AI built into it, providing the researcher with AI-generated bill overviews and transcript synopses. You’ll notice a general summary of the bill in the lower right area of the bill’s page. For a more detailed overview, MassTrac also provides a section-by-section summary that you can view right on MassTrac or export to Excel. If elaboration is required, MassTrac’s Legal Division staff will write a summary that includes more detail.

MassTrac Copilot is currently in the works, which will provide users with instant conversational assistance to help navigate legislative information. For example, you’ll be able to ask MassTrac Copilot “Tell me who testified on the Bottle Bill in 2022 and tell me what they said and what the response was.”

Another new feature this year is the Legislator & Committee Staff pages. These pages provide you with contact information for legislators and their staff committees. Access this information by clicking on the General Court tab and then choosing Committees.

MassTrac is full of information and tools to help you quickly and smoothly navigate legislative research, and the State Library is here to assist! If you have any questions on MassTrac or any of our other resources, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at reference.department@mass.gov.

Please note that MassTrac can only be used in the library. It is available to state employees and the public on our computers in the reading room (room 341) or on the balcony (room 442). After logging into one of our computers, simply open a browser and you’ll find the link to access MassTrac on our State Library of Massachusetts Onsite Database Links webpage. A librarian will log you in and then you’re ready to start your legislative research.


Jessica Shrey
Legal Research and Reference Librarian

State Library Newsletter - November Issue

Happy November! Our latest newsletter is out now, and full of information about our upcoming events and seasonal displays, new resources in our digital repository, and more!

Pictured here is a preview, but the full issue can be accessed by clicking here. And you can also sign up for our mailing list to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox.

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

Spirit Photography

Séance, anyone?

The desire to communicate with the dead (and other supernatural beings) is nothing new. Chances are you’ve seen at least one movie or TV show in which the characters attempt to make contact with ghosts or glimpse “beyond the veil” – you might have even tried it yourself! The belief in life after death and the possibility of communing with deceased loved ones are major tenets of Spiritualism, a religious/philosophical movement in vogue ca. 1840s – 1920s. (By the way, if you’re interested in an overview on Spiritualism, one of our past blog posts is a great place to start!)

Photograph of Mrs. Tinkham and spirit

by William H. Mumler. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 

Los Angeles, 84.XD.760.1.7

In the mid-nineteenth century, Boston was a major center for the Spiritualist movement. The movement drew the interest of true believers and sceptics. Unfortunately, it also attracted opportunistic fraudsters who were looking to capitalize on people’s grief. Various methods of making contact with the spirits existed and are still used today, for example, through consultations with mediums, i.e., people believed to be ‘sensitive’ to the spirit world and therefore able to perceive spirits.

Another way (or so it seemed) was through ‘spirit photography.’ This branch of photography arose when photographers noticed that sometimes blurred or translucent images appeared near or overlapping the actual subjects of their photos. These initially unintended effects were likely caused by the accidental reuse of glass negatives and other issues. The more maverick photographers realized that they could make these images by experimenting with layering multiple negatives and using different exposure times. You can read more about some of the techniques behind spirit photography (and how you can make your own spirit photos!) in this article by photographer Gabriel Biderman.

Some photographers claimed that these translucent figures were in fact spirits and they began to advertise their self-professed abilities to capture the images of spirits haunting the living. Thus, spirit photography was born!

For some, these photographs provided irrefutable evidence of the existence of ghosts; however, not everyone was convinced.

Harper’s Weekly May 8, 1869 issue

One of the most famous of these ‘spirit photographers’ was William Mumler who became active in 1861 and worked in Boston and New York. Illustrations of his spirit photos feature on the cover of Harper’s Weekly’s May 8, 1869 issue (we just so happen to have a copy of this issue in our collection!).

The accompanying article discusses the court case which the people of New York brought against Mumler a month earlier. The spirit photographer had been charged with fraud over his photographs. You can read the digitized version of The Spiritual Magazine’s publication of the trial on Hathi Trust. Mumler was eventually acquitted by Judge Dowling and continued to sell his photos – as can be seen in an advertisement in the Spiritualist newspaper, Religio Philosophical Journal, which published brief descriptions of some of the photos’ subjects. The editors of this journal cited his acquittal as further proof his photographs were genuine.

The following is an excerpt from Religio Philosophical Journal V12 N20 Aug 3 1872 which can be accessed online through the website of The International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals.

Below are some of the stories of the Massachusetts residents whom Mumler photographed, as advertised in Religio Philosophical Journal:

Mrs. Tinkham, Lowell, Mass. Spirit child, fully recognized. This picture is a remarkable one, inasmuch as it shows the power of spirits in moving tangible objects, the child having raised a portion of the sitter’s dress.

Mrs. Cottrell, Boston, Mass. Spirit child sitting in its mother’s lap. This picture is also a most excellent test, not only from its being readily recognized, but from the correct name of the child, which plainly appears in a wreath of flowers in its lap.

Master Herrod, N. Bridgwater, Mass. This young man is a medium. Before sitting for this picture three spirits offered to show themselves, representing Europe, Africa, and America. As will be seen by the picture, the promise was fulfilled[.] Also a picture was taken while entranced, and shows his double.

Some of Mumler’s photos are held at the Getty Museum in California. Fortunately, the Getty has digitized them, and the photographs can be seen on the museum’s website here. See if you can match the photos with the advertised descriptions!

Spirit photography is only one chapter of the fascinating history of Spiritualism. If you want to learn more about this movement and the key individuals involved, check out some of these titles available in our collection or through the CW MARS network:

• Boston in the golden age of spiritualism : séances, mediums & immortality.
• Trial of the spirits : a discourse delivered in the First Congregational Church, Quincy, Massachusetts, June 25, 1854.
• Preliminary report of the Commission appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to investigate modern spiritualism in accordance with the request of the late Henry Seybert
• The magician and the spirits : Harry Houdini and the curious pastime of communicating with the dead.

Happy hauntings!

Maryellen Larkin

Government Documents Reference Librarian

Sources:

Biderman, G. (2019). “Photographing Phantoms: How to Capture Ghosts and Spirits in Night Images.” National Parks at Night.

Morris, D. (2014). Boston in the golden age of spiritualism: séances, mediums & immortality. The History Press.

Religio Philosophical Journal V12 N20 Aug 3 1872.

The National Science and Media Museum. (2022). “Spirit Photography and the Occult: Making the Invisible Visible.” National Science and Media Museum.


*If you would like to view our copy of the Harper’s Weekly issue in person, please contact our Special Collections Department (special.collections@mass.gov) to arrange an appointment.