Related Resources

This page includes additional resources on Massachusetts from the Library's website.

American Folklife Center State Resources

American Folklife Center Collections: Massachusetts
The collections of the American Folklife Center contain rich and varied materials from Massachusetts that document the diversity of the state's folk traditions. Among its unique recordings are folk music dating from the 1930s to the present, including Anglo-American ballads, shanties, and African Methodist Episcopal religious services. The American Dialect Society Collection include recordings of a rich variety of narratives and oral histories from Massachusetts. From 1987 to 1988, the Center conducted the Lowell Folklife Project, which documented the city's many ethnic communities.

Exhibitions Featuring Massachusetts

American Treasures of the Library of Congress

View the American Treasures of the Library of Congress Exhibition
This exhibition provides unique insight into various aspects of American history and culture. Objects displayed are organized according to the three categories that Thomas Jefferson used for his library: memory, reason, and imagination.

The exhibition includes the following documents pertaining to Massachusetts:

John Bull & Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations

View the John Bull & Uncle Sam: Four Centuries of British-American Relations Exhibition
Exhibition that examines U.S. and British relations from colonial times to the twentieth century, including items from the American Revolution related to the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

View the Religion and the Founding of the American Republic Exhibition
Documents the role religion played in the shaping of early American life and in forming the American republic, including a section on the Church-State debate in Massachusetts in the years 1778 to 1780.

Historic Newspapers

Chronicling America: Massachusetts
Historic American newspapers from 1789 to 1963 selected and contributed by state partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program. Search this collection to find selected newspaper articles that mention events in Massachusetts.

Selected newspaper articles that mention events in Massachusetts:

Law Library

The Guide to Law Online: Massachusetts
The Guide to Law Online, prepared by the Law Library of Congress Public Services Division, is an annotated guide to sources of information on government and law available online. It includes selected links to useful and reliable sites for legal information on U.S states and territories, including Massachusetts.

Resources for Teachers

The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.

Features & Activities

Primary Sources by State: Massachusetts
The Library of Congress has rich documents and artifacts from every state, the U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia.

Lesson Plans

Exploring Community Through Local History: Oral Stories, Landmarks and Traditions
Students explore the local history of the community in which they live through written and spoken stories; through landmarks such as buildings, parks, restaurants, or businesses; and through traditions such as food, festivals and other events of the community or of individual families.
Local History: Mapping My Spot
Students create their town’s history for coming generations and place themselves on the map in a literal as well as figurative sense, by producing portions of an updated version of an early twentieth century panoramic map from the Digital Collections.

Today in History

The following dates in history feature significant events in Massachusetts's history as highlighted in the Library of Congress' collections.

January 23
January 23 marks the birth of John Hancock (1737-93), often remembered for his bold signature to the Declaration of Independence. President of the Second Continental Congress, Hancock was the first to sign the document.
February 5
Roger Williams, defender of religious liberty and founder of Rhode Island, landed near Boston, Massachusetts, on February 5, 1631, aboard the ship Lyon.
March 1
On March 1, 1692, Salem, Massachusetts authorities interrogated Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and an Indian slave, Tituba, to determine if they indeed practiced witchcraft. So began the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
March 5
Late in the afternoon of March 5, 1770, British sentries guarding the Boston Customs House shot into a crowd of civilians killing three and injuring eight others, two of them mortally. The Boston Massacre reflected growing tension between Great Britain and its American colonies.
April 19
On April 19, 1775, British and American soldiers exchanged fire in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord.
May 12
On May 12, 1850, Republican statesman and noted historian Henry Cabot Lodge was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
June 17
On June 17, 1775, American troops displayed their mettle in the Battle of Bunker Hill during the siege of Boston, inflicting casualties on nearly half of the British troops dispatched to secure Breed's Hill (where most of the fighting occurred).
July 12
Writer, philosopher, and naturalist Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts.
July 13
John Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, on July 13, 1729. Parker played a prominent role in the first battle of the War for Independence, as leader of the volunteer American militia known as the Minutemen.
September 14
On September 14, 1638, John Harvard, a 31-year-old clergyman from Charlestown, Massachusetts died, leaving his library and half of his estate to a local college. The young minister's bequest allowed the college to firmly establish itself. In honor of its first benefactor, the school adopted the name Harvard College.
October 1
On October 1, 1903, the Boston Americans (soon to become the Red Sox) of the American League played the National League champion Pittsburgh Pirates in the first game of the modern World Series. Pittsburgh won the game by a score of seven to three, but lost the best of the nine-game series to Boston, five games to three.
October 4
The General Court of the Plymouth Colony instituted a legal code, the first composed in North America, on October 4, 1636. It guaranteed citizens a trial by jury and stipulated that all laws were to be made with the consent of the freemen of the colony.
October 25
On October 25, 1764, Abigail Smith married a young lawyer from Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, by the name of John Adams, who would become, some thirty years later, the second president of the United States.

Veterans History Project

The Veterans History Project (VHP) collects and preserves the remembrances of American war veterans and civilian workers who supported them. Click on the link below to locate veterans from Massachusetts.

Veterans History Project: Massachusetts

Massachusetts: State Resource Guide

History, Humanities & Social Sciences: Ask a Librarian