American Jewish Historical Society; Pre-1851, Post-1850, and Miscellaneous Newspapers, Collection

The provenance and origins of the three collections of newspapers within the American Jewish Historical Society’s “Pre-1851 Newspapers,” “Post-1850 Newspapers,” and “Miscellaneous Newspapers” is unknown. At one time, the AJHS held a large collection of rare newspapers, periodicals, and serials from both the Jewish and non-Jewish press that originated from various cities and towns in older American and Canadian cities, as well as South America, the Caribbean, and Europe. In 1987, this large collection of newspapers, periodicals, and serials were housed in a storage facility located in Stoughton, Massachusetts after the AJHS moved from New York City to Waltham, Massachusetts. On October 31, 1994, an electrical fire broke out in the storage facility, causing fire and water-related damage to large portions of the collection. It is not known how the “Pre-1850” and “Post-1851” newspaper collections were related to this larger collection of historic newspapers or whether some of the newspapers in the present collection were destroyed in the warehouse fire and these collections are what remains of that larger collection. Preservation efforts to save the fire- and water-damaged collection failed when the cold storage trailer holding the materials malfunctioned, unbeknownst to the historical society staff, that were in the process of soliciting donations and conservators to rescue the collection. This finding aid will be updated as documentation on the history of the overall collection is found within the records of the American Jewish Historical Society. It is unclear to what extent the fire impacted this collection.