In partnership with the Maine Memory Network Maine Memory Network

New Hampshire Historical Society Facts

Founded:
The New Hampshire Historical Society was founded in 1823.

Mission:
The mission of the New Hampshire Historical Society is to educate a diverse public about the significance of New Hampshire's past and its relationship to our lives today. In support of this mission, the Society collects, preserves, and interprets materials pertaining to New Hampshire history.

Collections:
For close to two centuries, the Society has gathered objects, books, manuscripts, and images that tell New Hampshire's story. The collections include 30,000 museum objects, 50,000 printed volumes, 1.5 million pages of manuscripts, 800,000 pages of newspapers, 200,000 photographic images, 10,000 broadsides and ephemera items. Ranging in date from pre-contact to the present day, the Society's holdings reflect broadly the state's economic, political, social, and cultural history.

The Society's museum features the long-term overview called New Hampshire Through Many Eyes. The museum also offers changing exhibitions on a variety of topics.

Several items from the museum collection, including paintings, furniture, the original eagle from the New Hampshire State House, and Revolutionary War flags can be seen at the Society's library. Temporary exhibitions are also featured in the library's gallery. In addition, the Society develops traveling exhibitions.

Facilities:
The Society owns three properties all centrally located in Concord, New Hampshire's capital city: (1) a 1911 library designed by Guy Lowell; (2) a mid-19th-century commercial structure renovated and opened as the Society's museum in May 1995; and (3) the Eagle Stable, a brick building adjacent to the museum, purchased in October 1993 and currently used as office rental space.