In the spring of 1973, a group of photography students at Newton High School took pictures around the campus of the school. This was during the last few months of Newton High School before it was demolished to make way for Newton North High School, which opened in the fall of the same year. These candid photos offer a unique representation of student life at a suburban high school in the early seventies. [more]

Women in Massachusetts played a prominent role in the struggle for the vote leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. In honor of Women’s History Month this March we are presenting a collection of documents from Beverly City Hall and the Massachusetts Historical Society, along with student papers on the role of women’s associations and the road to suffrage. Pictured is Massachusetts Suffragist Margaret Foley distributing copies of the Women’s Journal and Suffragist News in 1913 (courtesy of the Library of Congress).

An article on the Claypit Cemetery project (“A virtual plot twist for a forsaken cemetery”) is in the local section of the Thurs. 2/21 Boston Globe.

For more, visit the Claypit Cemetery project webpage.

In honor of Black History Month, we are featuring African-Americans in Antebellum Boston. This project began with a database of around 1900 Beacon Hill/West End African-Americans from 1848-1855, using city directories, the 1850 federal census, and Boston city tax records. The names were then linked with almost 500 sources from The Liberator which have been catalogued and digitized. Also included is a sampling of research papers that students have written using these resources.

Also, coming soon, we will be expanding our research to include African-Americans in Dracut, MA, a stop on the underground railroad. Stay tuned!

We have attempted to provide a visual representation of Claypit Cemetery on our site as a way of commemorating those buried there. Since the actual site remains uncared for, and what is left of the markers continue to disappear, we hope this serves as the next-best way of remembering them.

This is still a work in progress. We welcome any additional information you may have about those buried at Claypit, and will make every attempt to continually make updates to the biographical information we have included. Please contact us at comments@primaryresearch.org.

Click here to visit the Claypit Cybercemetery

For the past few months students and teachers involved in researching the history of Claypit Cemetery have been compiling a database of persons buried there. We are including as much information as we can find about every individual, combining census data, city records, cemetery records, family histories, and more. We expect the database to be available in January, in the form of a Claypit Cyber-Cemetery. This is our way of memorializing this forgotten burial ground where so many individuals important to Massachusetts — and American — history are buried. In the meantime, check out the extensive research that has led us this far, and check back soon!

An exciting new project is underway in Dracut, Ma. Under the guidance of social studies teacher Rebecca Duda, 8th grade students are uncovering the Claypit Cemetery, Dracut’s oldest. Read more as the project unfolds here!

Women in Massachusetts played a prominent role in the struggle for the vote leading up to the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. In honor of Women’s History Month this March we are presenting a collection of documents from Beverly City Hall and the Massachusetts Historical Society, along with student papers on the role of women’s associations and the road to suffrage. Pictured is Massachusetts Suffragist Margaret Foley distributing copies of the Women’s Journal and Suffragist News in 1913 (courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Featured this month: African-Americans in Antebellum Boston. This project begins with a database of around 1900 Beacon Hill/West End African-Americans from 1848-1855, using city directories, the 1850 federal census, and Boston city tax records. These names are then linked with almost 500 sources from The Liberator which have been catalogued and digitized. Also included is a sampling of research papers that students have written using these resources.

Coming up in March for Women’s History Month, we will be presenting a new project on Women’s Suffrage in Massachusetts. Stay tuned!

Beverly High School Librarian Barbara Fecteau and a parent volunteer are resuming digitization of the Beverly High School Aegis. The Aegis is one of the longest-running student publications in the country, spanning over 100 years of unbroken publication. Most recently issues from 1902, 1903, 1928, and 1929 have been digitized. These issues offer a unique glimpse at student life, opinions, and attitudes through journalistic, expository, and fiction writing. They are also visually interesting, full of advertisements and cartoons. In the early years of The Aegis the magazine attempted to cover all aspects of student life, including sports, the arts, and activities both within and outside school.

The Aegis is available at the Beverly Educational Archives. Online!

In the future we hope to add hypertexted tables of contents for each digitized issue.