Chance and geography conspired early in the history of New England to lay a foundation for both industrialization and the rise of organized labor.This miscellaneous collection contains materials relating to work, business, and organized labor with an emphasis on New England. Among other... more

One of five villages comprising the western Massachusetts town of Montague, Lake Pleasant was founded by the New England Spiritualist Campmeeting Association in 1870 as a rustic summer resort. Formally incorporated in 1879 under the guidance of Henry A. Buddington and Joseph Beals, Lake Pleasant... more

The Lancaster Gazette was ushered into existence by Ferdinand Andrews and his brother Joseph on March 4, 1828, with minimal effort through the "almost spontaneous accord of a large and respectable list of subscribers" (Volume 1, Number 1) from Lancaster and neighboring towns.  Thus began the... more

Incorporated in 1653, Lancaster is the oldest town in Worcester County and the earliest permanent settlement in the central part of the state. It is located in the beautiful Nashua Valley, and its center is near the "Meeting of the Waters," where the north and south branches of the Nashua... more

Henry Stedman Nourse (1831-1903) was the guiding intelligence behind the development of the Lancaster Collection, for which he left an endowment in his will. The various scrapbooks of local source material that he complied provide a wealth of information not available elsewhere. Aside from his... more

The State Planning Board, established in Massachusetts per St 1935, c 475, s 2, was responsible for preparing and updating a master plan for the physical development of the Commonwealth. The plan served as the basis for projects focused on forestry, agriculture, and industrial, recreational, and... more

The Lane/Mead Boston Maritime Collection at the Boston Pubic Library was funded by Arthur Lane, of Peabody & Lane, Steamship Agents, to document the 20th century history and development of the shipping industry in the Port of Boston, Massachusetts. Items were donated by Peabody & Lane,... more

This collection consists of items from the Langdon family papers (MS040) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

Lantern slides are transparent photographic images (positives), mounted on glass plates. They are designed to fit into magic lantern projectors to enlarge images for easy viewing by a group of people. This collection contains 154 individual lantern slides from the following categories:Perkins... more

Presented here is a selection of lantern slides from the Newton photographs collection.The City of Newton owns a wealth of historic materials that speak to the community’s social, cultural and governmental past. These materials reflect the civic life of and provide insight into Newton from the... more

This collection consists of items from the Lantern slides collection (PC007) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection came to PEM during the 1984 merger with the China Trade Museum. It contains 148 lantern slides of Chinese people and places. The dates and creator(s) are unknown.

This collection consists of items from the Larry Katz collection hosted by Northeastern University Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection includes portraits, photos of textiles, personal items, and selected writings of Laura Bridgman from 1841 to 1889 at the Perkins Institution for the Blind, South Boston (now Perkins School for the Blind, Watertown, Massachusetts).We are grateful to Dartmouth College Rauner... more

This collection consists of items from the Laura Maria Barr photographic collection (PC014) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection holds gravestone rubbings that, except for two, were created in 1976 of the old section of Laurel Hill Cemetery in Reading, Massachusetts. The project was funded by the Friends of the Reading Public Library. Many of the rubbings are of the stones of veterans of the American... more

This collection consists of items from the Law Department Records collection hosted by Boston City Archives. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

The Lawrence British Club was founded in 1912 with John Holden as president, John Stephenson as vice president, Joseph Moss as treasurer, and James Radcliffe as clerk. The club built its own facility at 80 Cambridge Street in South Lawrence. The club is still standing.

This collection is composed of a variety of printed materials -- annual reports, announcements, programs, and one paper bag printed with a solicitation for donations of food for Thanksgiving. 

A native of Ontario, Lawrence D. Yeomans was working in New York when he volunteered for service in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War. For eighteen months, Yeomans served as a chauffeur with the Signal Corps in France, driving senior officers around Paris and to and... more

Football started as a school team in 1881; baseball started as early as 1887; basketball in 1926. Lawrence High School’s first football team played Phillips on Oct. 8, 1881 (Lawrence lost). In those days the manager (not a coach) would travel to the town that he wanted the team to play and they... more

In 1847, the first 17 high school students were taught on the first floor of the Oliver School. The first high school building was built in 1867. By the 1890s, the School Committee was considering a new building for the high school. 310 students were housed in a building meant for 200. In 1896,... more

The Lawrence History Center Photograph Collection contains photographs from 1850 to present, which chronicle the history of the people and places of Lawrence, Massachusetts.

The Lawrence redevelopment of the late 1960s included a section of mostly residential properties in an area north of the high school and the common. The neighborhood chosen was bound from White to Lawrence streets and ran from Haverhill Street just west of the high school to Maple Street. The... more

Urban renewal may be characterized as a process of conserving, rehabilitating, or clearing and reconstructing parts of a city to preserve or modernize the physical environment or to adapt districts to entirely new purposes or uses. This process was made necessary by the continued disintegration... more

In 1850, three years after Lawrence’s incorporation as a town, the three selectmen (chosen every March) functioned as both a Board of Health and overseers of the poor. Later works performed by the Board of Health were undertaken by the fire and streets departments, expenses being drawn from an... more

The Lawrence tornado, called the “Great Cyclone,” struck South Lawrence at 9:10 to 9:15 AM on Saturday, July 26, 1890. It took about two minutes to pass through any point. Damages were estimated at about $60,000. Eight people were killed and 65 were injured.That July morning was oppressively... more

Preceding the Engineering Department of today (2010), the original designation was a Commissioner of Streets. The first annual report was published in 1854, the first full year that Lawrence was a city. The Commissioner of Streets was responsible for streets--paving, watering, and general... more

The material in this collection came into the Lawrence Public Library from Lawrence City Hall over a number of months at the beginning of 2009. These sewer plans are bound in twelve volumes measuring 66 x 53 cm. Each plan is hand drawn and lettered. They show the date they were accepted. Later... more

The material in this collection came into the library from Lawrence City Hall. These street plans are bound in seven volumes measuring 66 x 53 cm. Each plan is hand drawn and lettered. They show the date they were accepted. Later additions are also dated. Some of the original drawings and... more

These plans were delivered to the Library from City Hall. Preceding the Engineering Department of today (2010), the original designation was a Commissioner of Streets. The first annual report was published in 1854, the first full year that Lawrence was a city. The Commissioner of Streets was... more

The snowfall of 1935-1936 was extremely heavy. The drifts were still intact in March due to a protracted period of cold weather. An early spring thaw and heavy rains filled Lake Winnepesaukee to dangerous levels and the spill-off began to flood the Merrimack, Spicket, and Shawsheen Rivers. On... more

A collection of glass plate negatives depicting scenes from Lawrence, Mass. These fourteen negatives are 3 x 5 inch glass plates that are showing some signs of erosion. One of them is broken. Some of them had papers that showed what some of the images were. Some of these were numbered, the... more

This lithograph entitled "View of the City of Lawrence" was executed by Ed. Hoffman and published by S. W. Chandler & Bro. lithographers for A. J. Wondra. It has been dated at 1854, the year just after incorporation as a city, due to the population figures listed on the lithograph. This is... more

This collection is composed of black and white photographs. The photographs measure 5.5 x 4 inches and are mounted (possibly pasted) on gray construction paper. It is likely that the collection was once in a scrapbook. The name and years in office are written in black ink on the paper below the... more

The photographs in this collection were found in a number of locations in the Lawrence Public Library. Some of them were framed; others were rolled up. All were in poor condition. In some cases, the condition was so bad that the appraiser could not tell what the subject matter was. The items... more

This collection contains one photograph of the School Committee of Lawrence, Mass., taken on Decemeber 8, 1921. Present in the photo are Walter J. Rochefort, Irving W. Sargent, Thomas F. Greene, William P. White (Mayor, chairman, ex-officio), Bernard M. Sheridan, and Mrs. Anna M. Driscoll. Mrs.... more

The city started the 50th anniversary of Lawrence's incorporation as a city on Monday June 1, 1903. Homing pigeons were freed at the Dracut Car Barn at 7:00 AM to later come to roost in the Lawrence coops. There were monetary prizes for the fastest birds. For the next three days they hosted a... more

The Lawrence textile workers strike of 1912 began January 12 and ended March 14 of that year. 27,000 workers were affected and the cost would be figured at around $3,000,000 in lost wages, revenue, extra expense in policing, and harm to the general business community. 500 people were arrested... more

The first United States Post office in Lawrence, Mass. was established Sept. 7, 1846. The location was on Turnpike St. (now Broadway) at the intersection with Common Street. Lawrence was then Merrimack and the first Postmaster was George A. Waldo of Methuen. A year later, the post office moved... more

For 25 years, the citizens of Lawrence used wells and cisterns to supply water for domestic use. In 1848, John Tenney of Methuen, Alfred Kittredge of Haverhill, and Daniel Saunders of Lawrence, with other associates, formed a corporation called the Lawrence Aqueduct Company to bring water in... more

The Lawrence Municipal Airport was originally constructed in 1934 under the Civil Works Act. 312 acres of land in North Andover were acquired for the project. Today’s (2009) present configuration was finalized in 1946 with three runways. In 1968, both runways 05-23 and 14-32 were extended to... more

This growing collection includes photos of events that took place at the Lawrence Portuguese American club. The Club's soccer team is heavily featured.Biographical Note:     The Portuguese American community in Lawrence is as old as the city itself. When the city received its charter in 1853,... more

Lawrence Public Library photograph collections that were used as part of a Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System digitization project.

The Lawrence Public Library has a an interesting collection of maps and atlases. Represented here are individual maps of Lawrence and Essex County.

The Franklin Library Association was formed on March 31, 1847 with Capt. Charles H. Bigelow, the engineer, under whom the great dam was built, functioning as the library's first president. Abbott Lawrence donated $1000 to purchase books that would "tend to create mechanics, good Christians and... more

This collection contains photographs of the various schools in Lawrence, Massachusetts, as well as some class photos.

6,000 men from Lawrence served in the First World War. Lawrence’s first draft registration was conducted on June 5, 1917. The National Guard also prepared for deployment. In addition to the two regular infantry companies and the battery, the headquarters company of the 102nd Field artillery and... more

As a teenager in Baltimore, Lawrence Sykes discovered his love of photography, which initially he combined with sports, his other passion. Mr. Sykes, who became an accomplished athlete before choosing photography, art, and teaching as his life’s path. “The amazing Larry Sykes, a professor to... more

This collection includes documents relating to laws, regulations, and the general conduct of commerce during the period of dramatic change from the late-19th century through the Great Depression and World War II. 

The Lee Library Association was organized in 1874 and was granted the use of two large rooms in Memorial Hall. In 1903, funds were secured from Andrew Carnegie, the Town of Lee, and generous citizens to build a new library. The Lee Library--built from Lee marble and completed in 1907--is the... more

These plans are part of the Local History Collection at the Leicester Public Library. They are full sized architectural drawings related to the 1895-1896 construction of the Leicester Public Library at 1136 Main Street Leicester. The pink granite, Classical Revival style building was designed by... more

The items in this collection relate to the Leite and Loureiro families, two families who lived in Lowell, MA. The photographs mostly cover life in Lowell from the first half of the 20th century. Both families contributed to the cultural vibrancy of the local Portuguese American... more

Represented here are items that document history local to the town of Lenox, Massachusetts.

Presented here are items included in the time capsule sealed within the cornerstone of Leominster’s then-new municipal building during the town’s 175th-anniversary celebration on July 4-5, 1915. Later the same year, Leominster became a city. The capsule was remembered, located, and successfully... more

The photographer Leon Hampartzoum Abdalian was born in Cilician Armenia, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey), circa 1884. He moved with his family to the United States in April of 1896 and eventually settled in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston.It is not known if Abdalian had any formal training... more

Leonard Bernstein was born at Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Sunday, 25 August 1918. Lawrence was the home of his maternal family, the Resnicks, who came from Russia. He later lived in Boston and went on to become a renowned composer, conductor, pianist, author, and... more

Polish immigrants Jan Lesinski and his wife Weronika (Rusin) settled in Easthampton, Massachusetts, in 1909 and worked in the textile mills there for decades. Married in 1922, the couple raised a son and daughter in their home on Franklin Street. Weronika Lesinski died in Northampton in 1961,... more

This collection consists of items from the Lesley Dillingham Bangs Photograph Collection (PC058) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

Modest about his abilities as a photographer (he called himself a camera-man, not a photo-journalist), Jones quietly built an unrivaled collection of photographic negatives, almost 40,000 of which were given to the Boston Public Library by his family in the early 1970s. The collection is a... more

The Leslie Mann Baseball Lantern Slide Collection is a series of original glass mounted lantern slides created by Leslie Mann in 1922. The slides were used in Mann's Mannscope Motion Picture Course for baseball instruction and theory covering topics such as Base Running, Batting, Defensive... more

Lester Grinspoon, the Harvard psychiatrist who became a celebrated advocate for reforming marijuana laws, was born June 24, 1928, in Newton, Massachusetts. A veteran of the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Medical School, he trained at the Boston Psychoanalytic... more

This collection consists of items from the Letter collection hosted by Boston College. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

The Winsors were one of the most successful merchant families in Duxbury shortly after the Revolutionary War. In the 1780s and 90s, they launched more vessels than any other builders in town. Samuel Winsor, born perhaps in Boston in 1725, is the first of the family seen in Duxbury. He settled on... more

This collection consists of items from the Letters from Female Impersonators collection hosted by Digital Transgender Archive. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

In 1967, Marshall Bloom and Raymond Mungo, former editors of the student newspapers of Amherst College and Boston University, were fired from the United States Student Press Association for their radical views. In response they collaborated with colleagues and friends to found the Liberation... more

The Boston-based radical abolitionist newspaper The Liberator was published weekly from January 1, 1831 to December 29, 1865. The Liberator was founded and published by William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp and was a leading vehicle for unrelenting advocacy of the abolitionist cause and for the... more

This collection consists of items from the Librarians by the sea : podcast learning series collection hosted by Swampscott Public Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

In May 2017, a group of archivists and librarians convened at the Moving Image Archiving and Preservation Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for a two-day colloquium on the impact of environmental change on historical memory institutions. The speakers in the Libraries and Archives in the... more

This collection consists of items from the Library Building Photos collection hosted by Lucius Beebe Memorial Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection consists of items from the Library Fixtures collection hosted by Lucius Beebe Memorial Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

A collection of documents and images relating to life in Granville, Massachusetts, generally from 1850 to 1950. The collection depicts the people, places, and events that defined this rural Western Massachusetts town.

This collection consists of items from the Les Liliacées collection hosted by Northeastern University Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

Dr. Lillian Francis McMackin, MD, a pediatrician and the first female medical trainee and house officer at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, was born on February 22, 1915, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Her mother, Mary Paiva Pinha Francis (1894-1980), from São Miguel Island in the Azores,... more

When Lillian Hyman Katzman volunteered to work with the Democratic Party in New York City in 1948, she was sent over to the office of W.E.B. Du Bois to assist him with some secretarial work. From that beginning, she was hired as a secretary, remaining in Du Bois's employ for several... more

Lincoln W. Barnes (1879-1966), born in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, was a professional photographer with a studio on Main Street in Amherst from 1920 to about 1955. He also copied and restored old photographs and was an official photographer for Amherst College.The Barnes Photograph Collection... more

The Lincoln Town Archives collections are comprised of municipal records, manuscripts, books, photographs, audio-visual materials, and other ephemera documenting the history of Lincoln from 1746 to the present.

Chiefly papers and records generated during research and field work for the Linguistic Atlas of New England (1939-1943), including over 400 interview records (carbon copies) from fieldworkers' notebooks arranged by community, then by informant; audiotapes of follow-up interviews;... more

These items were compiled by Lionel J. Auclair while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard as a member of the Mounted Beach Patrol in Indian River, Florida and as a crew member of the U.S.S. Davenport commencing in 1945. At its height, the Beach Patrol employed about 24,000 men who protected 3,700... more

Antoni Lipski emigrated from Grodno, now Belarus, in 1907, and settled in the Oxbow neighborhood of Northampton, Mass. An employee of the Mount Tom Sulphite Pulp Company, he and his wife Marta had a family of twelve, ten of who survived to adulthood. Their oldest child Stanley Walter Lipski... more

This collection consists of items from the List of Vessels Belonging to the District of Gloucester collection hosted by Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection consists of items from the Little family papers (MS016) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection consists of items from the Liturgy and life collection hosted by Boston College. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

In June 1917, Lloyd Walsh volunteered for duty in the American Field Service, and for three months he served as an ambulance driver for Service Section 68 (S.S.U. 68), a unit that included a number of Amherst College students. When the United States entered the war later in the year,... more

Settled in 1629 as Mystic Side, Malden is rich in local and family history. The Malden Public Library houses the local history and the family histories in the 1885 Converse Memorial Building (36 Salem Street) with other special collections.The Local History Collection includes the vital records... more

This collection contains selected manuscripts from the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections related to specific locations. The collection includes selected government and court records, military records, unpublished histories of locations and institutions, photographs from known locations, brief... more

Represented here are items that document the town of Middleton, Massachusetts.

The Town of Lenox has a varied history, from its involvement in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as the Shire Town for Berkshire County, as a regional industrial center, as part of the New England Lake District literary period, as a home for the Gilded Age cottagers, and as a place of musical... more

This collection consists of items from the Locke-Ober Cafe collection (CC008) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection consists of items from the Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri Accurata Descriptio, et Iconibus Artificiosissimis Expressio, Per Universam Physices Historiam collection hosted by Northeastern University Library. Information about the items has been provided by the holding... more

In 1902, a group of residents of Holyoke, Mass., secured a charter for the Holyoke Home for Aged People, wishing to do “something of permanent good for their city” and provide a “blessing to the homeless.” Opened in March 1911 on two acres of land donated by William Loomis, the... more

Lou Jones is a Boston-based artist who started his career as a photographer in 1971. Originally pursuing a career as a physicist, studying at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and working one summer at NASA as a literal rocket scientist, Jones pivoted to photography as a way to meld his love of... more

The Pictou family were prominent members of the Bear River Band of the Mi'kmaq nation in Nova Scotia during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Notably, Chief Benjamin Pictou (1830-1931) lived for over a century, witnessing the evolution of the Mi'kmaq economy from hunting, fishing,... more

Boston Public Library’s Louis Prang & Company collection includes more than 1,500 chromolithographs, dozens of sample books of greeting cards, and related documents produced by the firm between its establishment in Boston in 1860 and its merger with the Taber Art Company in 1897. Acquired... more

This collection consists of items from the Louis Woodbury photographic collection, ca. 1890s-1900s (PC052) collection hosted by Historic New England. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

This collection consists of items from the Louise Day Hicks collection hosted by Boston City Archives. Information about the items has been provided by the holding institution so that they may be included in Digital Commonwealth.

A life-long resident of Lake Pleasant, Massachusetts, and a third-generation Spiritualist, Louise Shattuck was an artist, teacher, and noted breeder of English cocker spaniels.Shattuck’s work as a teacher, writer, artist, and dog breeder are documented in this collection through decades of... more