The
Athenæum's collections consist of over a half a million volumes and are
particularly strong in the areas of Boston history, New England state and local
history, biography, English and American literature, and the fine and decorative
arts. Holdings are arranged in six major divisions: 1) books on the open shelves;
2) rare material (including manuscripts and special collections; 3) fine
art, prints, engravings, and photographs; 4) maps;
5) reference material; and 6) newspapers, periodicals,
and microfilm.
SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS
From
the 15th-century rarities included in the King's Chapel collection to a rich abundance
of Confederate States imprints, the Athenæum's Special Collections reflect
a continuing concern not only for cultivating strengths to serve the needs of
library patrons, but also for preserving historically valuable books, prints,
and photographs for the use of scholars and researchers and the enlightenment
of future generations of readers.
Special
Collections include: Confederate States imprints;
18th- and 19th-century tracts; early
Boston newspapers; early United States documents;
19th-century prints and photographs; Gypsy
literature; the King's Chapel Collection
(mostly 17th-century historical and theological works); early
American broadsides; books from the libraries of George
Washington, General Henry Knox, and
Jean Louis, Cardinal Cheverus; an Author's
Collection featuring first editions and related works by John Fowles, Lord
Byron, T.S. Eliot, and John Masefield; the Danforth Collection of chemistry and
alchemy books; books published by Boston publisher Crocker and Brewster; private
press collections, including a large portion of the archives of the Merrymount
Press; and early publications in Native
American languages.
THE
FINE ARTS COLLECTION
From its early days the Athenæum was a center for the fine arts, and
was Boston's first museum of fine arts. M. M. Swan writes in her book The Athenæum
Gallery, 1827-1873: The Boston Athenæum as an Early Patron of Art, that
"for almost fifty years following its first art gallery
exhibition in 1827, the trustees purchased paintings and sculpture, European and
American, and fostered the production of works of art by exhibitions." In 1873
and 1874 the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which had been incorporated in 1870,
occupied two of the four Athenæum galleries, and when it moved in 1876 to
its new quarters in Copley Square much of the Atheæum's art collection was
deposited there to form the nucleus of the new museum. The Athenæum retained
many remarkable works still to be seen in the building, however, including busts
of Washington, Franklin, and Lafayette by Jean Antoine Houdon; the Mather Brown
portrait of John Adams, which once belonged to Thomas Jefferson; John Singer Sargent's
portrait of Annie Adams Fields; several portraits by Gilbert Stuart; the large
painting of Thomas Handasyd Perkins by Thomas Sully in the first floor Reading
Room; and the full length portraits of Daniel Webster and John Marshall by Chester
Harding, which hang in the Athenæum's vestibule. The Athenæum still
actively acquires works of art relevant to the collection, usually by gift and
occasionally by purchase. Thanks to the generosity of two descendants, the Athenæum
now owns the largest collection of the work of American painter Cephas Thompson,
and has recently purchased works by Asher B. Durand and Chester Harding. For more
information on our collection of paintings and sculpture please see our page devoted
to the Athenæum's Fine Arts Collection.
MANUSCRIPTS
The Athenæum's
collection of manuscripts grew steadily from the founding of the institution,
but it was not until the stewardship of Librarian Charles Knowles Bolton that
efforts were first made to develop and organize this material. Today the Athenæum
is interested in donations of unpublished material which in some way relates to
the history of the institution, its founders, and members, or manuscripts which
help document the influence of the Atheæum on the literary, social, and
artistic culture of Boston. Significant manuscripts already in the collection
include the papers of Atheæum Trustee Samuel Eliot; the William Tudor papers;
papers of Commodore Isaac Hull; papers of architects Charles Bulfinch, Alexander
Parris, George Minot Dexter, Nathaniel Bradlee, John H. Sturgis, Ogden Codman,
and Richard Clipston Sturgis; artists' papers (Amasa Hewins, Isaac Sprague, Cephas
Thompson, Cecilia Beaux, Francesca Alexander, John Singer Sargent); and papers
of merchant John Perkins Cushing, Robert Morris (African American lawyer and abolitionist),
and P.T. Barnum and Moses Kimball (showmen). The records of the Provident Institution
for Savings, the second savings bank to be established in the United States, came
as a gift to the Athenæum in 1993. Modern additions to the collection include
the papers of historian Stewart Mitchell, and the papers of long-time Boston School
Committee member Joseph Lee.
The Athenæum maintains not only its own, but also the institutional archives
of two earlier Boston cultural institutions, the Anthology Society and the Boston
Library Society; the Boston Library Society merged with the Athenæum in
1939. The Boston Library Society records include information on early members,
and catalogs and reading lists from this early Boston institution. The Anthology
Society records chronicle the evolution of a small group of scholars who became
the founders of the Boston Athenæum. As the founders and proprietors of
the Atheæum were also the dynamic builders of Federal Boston, the Athenæum
archives preserve crucial records relative to 18th- and early 19th-century literary
and cultural development in the city. Taken all together, these archives provide
a complete and unbroken record of Boston cultural development from 1792 until
the present day.
50
Books Plus Three: Special Collections Reports (plus illustrations) from Stanley
Ellis Cushing, Curator of Rare Books
Thomas Moore's The Ferns of
Great Britain and Ireland, 1855
Pierre-Joseph
Redouté's Traite des arbres et arbustes que l'on cultive en France
