The philanthropic work of Josephine Shaw Lowell: containing a biographical sketch of her life, together with a selection of her public papers and private letters

collected and arranged for publication by William Rhinelander Stewart.

Queries &c about Colleges, ca. 1798

One leaf containing handwritten research questions regarding the holding of real estate and related taxation.

The articles which all that belong to the private meeting instituted at Harvard College, 1719, assent unto, January 10, 1723

This one-page document contains the handwritten laws of an unnamed Harvard College religious society. The document is dated January 10, 1723 and includes the signatures of twenty-six students in the Harvard Classes of 1724 through 1728.

A catalogue of books in the College library: [which Benjamin Welles wished to read], 1797

In this small paper-bound catalog, Benjamin Welles (1781-1860) listed books in the Harvard College Library which he wished to read. He presumably compiled the list by consulting the Library's 1790 printed catalog, as the works are categorized according to subjects outlined in that catalog (Antiquities, Astronomy, Ancient Authors, Biography, Sacred Criticism, Ethics, Geography, Geometry, History, Nature, Travels / Voyages, Natural Law, Logic, Metaphysics, Miscellaneous Works, Dramatic, Phililogy, Natural Philosophy, Poetry, Rhetoric, and Theology). The final pages of Welles' catalog, which he titles "Another Selection," list additional volumes he wished to read. These are listed alphabetically, A - G. Some titles throughout the catalog have been marked with a "+" perhaps to indicate that Welles had read them.

The report of the committee about Harvard Coledge: presented to the Generall Court held the 3 of (3) month, 1654

Two folio-sized leaves with a handwritten draft of the May 3, 1654 report of a General Court Committee authorized to investigate the financial state of Harvard College. The report responds directly to eight questions raised in the September 10, 1653 Order of the General Court that established the Committee. The report provides summaries of Harvard's income sources and disbursements, offers recommendations regarding the President's salary and the allowances for the academic Fellows, steward, butler, and cook, and indicates specific contributions from local towns.

Thaddeus Mason Harris' working documents regarding subject-based library catalog, ca. 1790

Thaddeus Mason Harris, who served as interim librarian of the Harvard College Library in 1787 and as its librarian from 1791 through 1793, is believed to have created these notes while helping compile the library's first printed subject-based catalog. The catalog, Catalogus Bibliothecae Harvardianae Cantabrigiae Nov-Anglorum, was published in 1790 and represented a significant change in approach to the cataloging of the library's collections, which had formerly been cataloged alphabetically. These documents, many of them on small scraps of paper, contain the titles and bibliographic information of books on a range of topics, from "Anatomici" to "Rhetorica."