Scope and Content: Massachusetts St 1987, c 541, s 4 designated the Dept. of Public Health as the state radiation control agency (MGLA c 111, s 5N). The Radiation Control Program, so-called, is currently placed under the department’s Bureau of Environmental Health, although legislatively the bureau’s functions are essentially those outlined as being part of the Bureau of Environmental Sanitation in the Dept. of Environmental Protection (MGLA c 21a, s 8) (see: Division of Environmental Health. Agency history record ((M-Ar)EN6.21)). The Radiation Control Program  (RCP) protects the health and safety of the residents of the Commonwealth from the harmful effects of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. RCP staff address a range of issues associated with radioactive materials including the regulation of specific radioactive sources, x-ray technology, nuclear medicine, mammography, professional training and licensure for radiologic technologists, laser registration, and more. The Nuclear Incident Advisory Team (NIAT) routinely participates in exercises to evaluate emergency plans to address nuclear power plant events.  RCP staff also work with other Bureau of Environmental Health programs to carry out environmental monitoring activities and with local boards of health to regulate conditions related to the use of UV light in tanning facilities.
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Scope and Content: The Commissioners on Public Lands were established in 1861 to oversee Boston Harbor and Back Bay lands.  In 1863 they assumed full responsibility for the maintenance and care of the Mill Dam (now Beacon Street) and the roads and bridges connecting to it.  Receipts were maintained by the commissioners to provide a record of funds received and disbursed in the course of carrying out these responsibilities.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by year
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Scope and Content: Under successive authorizations, the Committee for the Sale of Eastern Lands (1783-1801) and the Land Office were the agencies with responsibility for the management and sale of public lands in Maine on behalf of the Commonwealth.  In performing these activities they took in and expeanded monies.  These files provide the back-up documentation for much of the business undertaken.  Throughout these files are found an assortment of bills, receipts, and statements of expenditures relating to the purchase of services and/or sale of real estate by the various agencies.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Transferred to: Massachusetts. Commissioners of Public Lands. Receipts ((M-Ar)1074X)
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Scope and Content: Bridgewater, Mass., was the site successively of a State Almshouse (1854-1872) for so-called willing and needlessly dependent paupers, and the State Workhouse (1866-1887), for paupers convicted of misdemeanors as well as paupers generally (from 1872), and incorrigible juveniles (1869-1948). The State Workhouse was renamed the State Farm (1887-1955), which also included a State Farm Hospital for the medical needs of all inmates, as well as locals and poor admitted solely for medical treatment. The change in name was in deference to the admission of insane male paupers (1886), although it was followed by the admission of aged and physically or mentally infirm inmates of the State Prison (1890). Insane admissions were then limited for a time to criminals (1894), forming a division called the State Asylum for Insane Criminals (1895), which was renamed Bridgewater State Hospital (1909). Units at Bridgewater were later added for female prisoners (1909-1930), so-called defective delinquents (males from 1922, females 1926-1954)–mentally impaired inmates requiring segregation from standard inmate or institutionalized populations–and for drug and alcohol addicts (from 1922, females to 1930 only), eventually mostly voluntary admissions. All Bridgewater State Farm facilities and divisions (including prison, almshouse, insane, and medical hospital functions) were administered by a common superintendent. The running of the State Farm, including industries and extensive agricultural operations, relied on work performed by all capable inmates.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by inmate
Notes: Box (1)  A-D. Box (2)  E-L. Box (3)  L-P. Box (4)  Q-Z. Inmate cash. Box (5)  Inebriates and drug addicts, including voluntary admissions
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Scope and Content: The Reformatory Prison for Women was opened in Sherborn in 1877.  It was renamed the Reformatory for Women by St 1911, c 181, and because of a redrawn boundary line its fuller designation was changed from the Reformatory for Women at Sherborn to the Reformatory for Women at Framingham by St 1932, c 180, s 24.  Under St 1955, c 770 it received its current name, the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Framingham.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Spine title: Re-commitments
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Scope and Content: The State Prison was opened in 1805 at Charlestown, Boston, as a successor to the prison on Castle Island.  During 1878-1884 the prison was closed and inmates kept at Concord.  With that exception, Charlestown remained the state prison until replaced by Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole, 1955-1956.
Arrangement: Arranged by number of times convicted, thereunder chronologically
Notes: Arranged by number of times convicted, thereunder chronologically
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Arrangement: Arranged chronologically by date/time of recordation
Restrictions: Restricted as fragile; access by permission of state archivist or curator of Massachusetts Archives only
Notes: Volumes numbered 1-111, 113, 115-193.  Volumes 112 (Jan.-July 1868) and 114 (Jan.-Mar. 1769) either lost or destroyed, probably when the registry was moved to Dedham in 1776.  In 1983, volumes 1-14 (1629-1687) ms. volumes reported missing; recovered 2003.  For printed version see above. Volumes 3-4, 7-8, 11-12, 13-14 boxed in pairs. Deposited in Archives by Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, Jan. 4, 1999; by Massachusetts Registry of Deeds, Suffolk District: volumes 1-12, Nov. 19, 2003, v. 13-14, Dec. 17, 2003. (Per St 1999, c 127, s 53, the registry passed to the general superintendence of the state secretary as of Sept. 1, 1998, and its staff became employees of the secretary effective July 1, 1999.)
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Scope and Content: Middlesex County was incorporated on May 10, 1643 (Mass Recs 2:38), continuing under successive governments of Massachusetts, most recently the Commonwealth (1780), as outlined in MGLA c 34.  Administrative powers and duties previously exercised at various times under the laws of the Commonwealth by the county courts of general sessions of the peace, county courts of common pleas, and circuit courts of common pleas, were assigned to commissioners in Middlesex and other counties, per St 1827, c 77 (1828).  The government of Middlesex County in this and other respects was abolished as of the effective date of St 1997, c 48 (approved July 11, 1997)
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Series incomplete: records after 1914 lacking
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Scope and Content: Assistants, also designated judicially in their own towns as magistrate, with powers of justice of the peace, were chosen annually by the General Court of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, the colony chartered by the English Crown in 1629.  They met separately from the General Court as a whole (i.e., including its freemen–or, from 1634, their elected deputies), constituting with the governor and deputy governor a Court of Assistants.  In 1634 this body’s legislative powers were ceded to the General Court as a whole (Mass Recs 1: 117).  From 1636 certain members were appointed as members for life of a standing council to the governor (see: Massachusetts. Council. Agency history record). By 1644, while assistants continued to meet separately–now concurrently with a House of Deputies, thus in effect being the upper house of the General Court–the designation of Court of Assistants was reserved for the assistants acting solely in their judicial capacity, this body continuing until the institution of the Dominion of New England in 1686 and then again with the 1689 revival of colonial government until institution of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay in 1692.
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Scope and Content: The Anitoxin and Vaccine Laboratory was established within the Massachusetts State Board of Health in 1904 for the preparation (initially by injecting toxins into or extracting naturally-occurring  toxins from animals), storage, and distribution of diphtheria antitoxin serum and smallpox vaccine.  Other vaccines were added as developed, including those for influenza, meningitis, pneumonia,  and poliomyelitis (derived from polio convalescents, eventually abandoned in the late 1930s as ineffective).  Antitoxin production began in the State House in 1894 but in 1895 was moved to Harvard University’s Bussey Institution, until the establishment of the state laboratory. By 1915 the laboratory functioned as part of the Division of Biologic Laboratories under the state board (renamed Dept. of. Public Health in 1919); by the 1950s the division no longer named or reported  separately on the laboratory.
Arrangement: In seven subseries; Arranged chronologically within each subseries
Restrictions: (Wassermann test results) Personal medical information restricted by statutory provision MGLA c 4, s 7, d 26(c) and c 66A. For conditions of access consult repository
Notes: Transferred to Archives from Center for the History of Medicine, Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard University, Oct. 23, 2013
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