Archive

The Athenaeum maintains its own and the institutional archive of two earlier Boston cultural institutions, the Anthology Society and the Boston Library Society; the Boston Library Society merged with the Athenaeum in 1939.

The Boston Library Society records include information on early members, 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 Atheaeum.  As the founders and proprietors of the Athenæum were also the dynamic builders of Federal Boston, the Athenæum archive preserves crucial records relative to 18th- and early 19th-century literary and cultural development in the city. This archive provides a complete and unbroken record of Boston’s cultural development from 1792 to the present day.

For inquiries about the archive email Carolle R. Morini, the Caroline D. Bain Archivist, Reference Librarian.