Digital Commonwealth added a lot of new items to existing collections in December, but only Lincoln Public Library and the Massachusetts Archives added wholly new collections.  The Archives added a small collection of photographs of founders and commissioners of the Metropolitan Park Commission.  Lincoln uploaded the Isabelle Peirce Collection, which consists mainly of 19th century letters to Isabelle Peirce as well as some Peirce family documents.

Wrapping up the centennial of the end of World War I, Massachusetts General Hospital added scrapbooks to its World War I collection, one of which included the news clipping of the headline announcing the end of the war. (Below.) More than 500 MGH employees wound up serving in Europe.  These scrapbooks document their wartime experiences.

Dorothy Tarbox scrapbox
Scrapbook of Dorothy Tarbox, RN, World War I from MGH Archives and Special Collections and the MGH School of Nursing Collection

Annisquam Historical Society
Annisquam Historical Society’s Collection of Historical Documents – 2 items added to an existing collection

Boston Public Library
Early, Rare, and Exceptional Items from Special Collections, Rare Books – 1 item added to an existing collection
Medieval and Early Renaissance Manuscripts (Collection of Distinction) – 9 items added to an existing collection
Norman B. Leventhal Map Center Collection – 762 items added to an existing collection
Press Photography from the Brearley Collection – 474 items added to an existing collection
Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee (Collection of Distinction) – 2,127 items added to an existing collection

Lincoln Public Library
Isabelle Peirce Collection, 1766-1994, bulk 1840-1920 – 170 items

Massachusetts Archives
Massachusetts Metropolitan Park Commission, Founders and Commissioners, Photographic Portraits, ca. 1892 to ca. 1907 – 15 items

Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital
Massachusetts General Hospital World War I Collection – 7 items added to an existing collection

SAILS Library Network
47 new items harvested

University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
39 new collections – 21, 161 new items harvested

Avant l'assaut. Images of World War I Battlefields. Franklin Historical Museum.
Avant l’assaut, from Images of World War I Battlefields (Franklin Historical Museum)

All those April showers (rain and snow alike) brought over 3,300 new items to the Digital Commonwealth.  The largest donation came from the National Archives at Boston with its Watertown Arsenal Photographs collection.  The photos of bright shining new armaments contrast sharply with the Franklin Historical Museum’s riveting Images of World War I Battlefields collection.  (See Avant l’assaut to left.)

On balance, the Noble & Cooley Center for Historic Preservation and Jacob Edwards Library (Southbridge) have added images of everyday life in small town Massachusetts.  The Boston Public Library enhances the everyday with the artistic and, happily, the humorous.  In this case, most of us might associate running and bulls with Ernest Hemingway and Pamplona.  For Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, the association becomes running from bulls – and there is nothing macho about it.  (See La vache enragée below.)

Boston Public Library
Emily Tennyson Letters, 1858-1873 – 83 items
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Prints and Drawings – 351 items
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). Prints and Drawings – 8 items
Paintings and Fine Arts Collection at the Boston Public Library – 1 item added to existing collection
Walt Whitman Collection (1819-1892) – 1 item

Franklin Historical Museum

La vache enragee. Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. BPL.
La vache enragée, from Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Prints and Drawings (BPL)


Images of World War I Battlefields – 48 items
Maps of Franklin, Massachusetts – 9 items

Jacob Edwards Library
New Topographical Atlas of Worcester County – 3 items

National Archives at Boston
Watertown Arsenal Photographs – 2,833 items

Noble & Cooley Center for Historic Preservation
Life in Granville, Massachusetts Collection – 11 items
NCCHP Museum Collection – 2 items added to existing collection
Noble & Cooley Business Correspondence Collection – 1 item added to existing collection
Noble & Cooley Catalog Collection – 1 item
Noble & Cooley Employee Collection – 3 items added to existing collection
Toy Manufacturing Industry – 1 item
Trade Catalog Collection – 13 items added to existing collection