The Adams Papers

Massachusetts Historical Society

Publisher: Harvard University Press (The Belknap Press)

Additional information at http://www.masshist.org/adams/adams-family-papers and electronic archive at https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/. The papers of John Adams are also included in Founders Online at http://founders.archives.gov

John Adams (1735-1826) was the second President of the United States. He was a lawyer, diplomat, and leader of the movement for American independence. Also included in this edition are his wife Abigail (1744-1818), his son John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), sixth President of the United States, and others from four generations of the Adams family. A comprehensive edition of the diaries, correspondence, and other papers of the Adams family from 1753 to 1889. The Massachusetts Historical Society was given the collection with the condition that the Society publish these papers. The Society produced a comprehensive 608-reel microfilm edition of the Adams Papers. It then turned to preparing letterpress volumes, publishing diaries and legal papers. The project editors are focused on comprehensive publication of the papers of John Adams and his family into two series. One documents John Adams’s career as a political leader and diplomat and appears in the Papers of John Adams. The other series is the Adams Family Correspondence and features Abigail and John Adams’s letters to family and friends.

To be completed in approximately 100 volumes