New England Women and Their Families in the 18th and 19th Centuries: Personal Papers, Letters, and Diaries offers researchers a rich assortment of primary sources on everyday life in 18th- and 19th-century New England. These family papers reveal the relationships and experiences of mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, sisters and brothers, students and teachers, friends and lovers.
With this collection, researchers can explore the private side of the economic, political, and intellectual energies that made New England such an influential region.
Series A: Manuscript Collections from the American Antiquarian Society: Part 2: The Dewey-Bliss Family Collection
Part 2 offers a large New England family collection of extraordinary completeness. The Dewey-Bliss family papers span five generations of the Dewey family of Williamstown, Northampton, and Worcester, Massachusetts, and four generations of the Bliss family of Royalston and Worcester, Massachusetts. Part 2 is a rich collection of primary documentation for students in women_s studies, family studies, comparative social history, and the history of material culture.
Virtually every aspect of family life is addressed in the diaries, letters, and courtship correspondence of these 19th century New Englanders. Elders give moral guidance and educational advice to their children and grandchildren. Extensive courtship correspondence reveals how romance and marriage evolved over several generations. And journals kept by both men and women record their innermost thoughts.