Review by Choice Review
Tucker, currently Director of the Massachusetts Historical Society, provides an incisive and detailed analysis of the origins of the nation's first historical society from its meager beginnings of ten like-minded men to the auspicious research institution it is today. The study is organized largely around the terms of its subsequent directors. Within this framework Tucker traces the growth of its manuscript, library, and museum collections, the society's various buildings and locations, the changing nature of the perennial membership issue (who and how many), donations and fund-raising, publications and programs, and the personalities of its notable doyens. The history of the Massachusetts Historical Society is of more than local and regional interest; its contribution to the heritage of the US looms large through the work of its past members, who were among the leading historians of their day, and of the group of scholars who labor there today. This study draws on the author's earlier Clio's Consort: Jeremy Belknap and the Founding of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1990). For the cultural context of the nation's historical societies see Michael Kammer's Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (CH, May'92). Five appendixes list members, officers and principal staff, endowment fund contributors, by-laws, and the various acts passed by the General Court of Massachusetts relating to the society. Contains 37 illustrations and an extensive index. General readers, upper-division undergraduates and above. M. L. Dolan; Northern Michigan University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
