Boston Public Library┋Rare Books and Collections of Distinction

The Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, a collection of 500,000 volumes and 1 million+ manuscripts, serves as the Boston Public Library's principal repository of rare books, manuscripts and historical artifacts of permanent or enduring value. Important holdings include Colonial and Revolutionary War Boston with special strengths in administrative, judicial, and church records; the Boston Theatre Collection beginning with the first independent theater in Boston – the Federal Street Theatre (1793-1852); the Anti-Slavery Collection and its major holdings of the papers of William Lloyd Garrison, the Weston Sisters, Amos Augustus Phelps, Joseph May, Jr. and Sr., and others; the Massachusetts 20th Regiment, an important Civil War Union regiment from Massachusetts; the John Adams Library, the personal library of the second President of the United States; The Thomas Prince Library, the colonial library of an early minister of Old South Church; and the Irish History Collection that reflects the special historical relationship between Boston and Ireland.