Scope and Content: The State Board of Health as part of its function to control and prevent disease required municipal boards of health to notify the board of the occurrence of a case of smallpox within twenty-four hours (St 1883, c 138).  Reports record this required information, as well as similar information from other state agencies.
Arrangement: In two subseries: (1) Massachusetts reports; arranged chronologically; (2) Other reports; arranged chronologically in reverse order
Notes: Spine title: Notices–malarial fever and smallpox
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Scope and Content: The State Reform School was founded in 1847 and opened in 1848 at Westborough for the instruction, discipline, employment, and reform of male juvenile offenders in Massachusetts.  It was renamed the Lyman School for Boys in 1884 and closed in 1972.  During the period 1895-1911 it was administered by the Trustees of the Lyman and Industrial Schools, who held monthly meetings to vote on decisions concerning the school and its students.  Reports issued to the superintendent are abstracts of trustee minutes, documenting decisions regarding the status of individual students and the administration of the school.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
Notes: Deposited in the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College, May 7, 1976.  Transferred to Archives, November 11, 1982
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Scope and Content: The Charles River (Echo) Bridge was constructed by the Boston Water Board (1875-1877) to transport the Sudbury River Conduit (later Aqueduct) over the Charles River as it runs through Newton Upper Falls. Today the aqueduct is used for emergency backup only, but this section of it can be traced on foot by a path running from Ellis Street, Newton Upper Falls, to Reservoir Street, Needham. A more detailed account follows:
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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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 primary agencies with responsibility for the management and sale of public lands in Maine on behalf of the Commonwealth.  Periodically it was necessary for them to report their management activities to the General Court.  This reporting function was fulfilled by this series.  Through it the General Court was informed on such matters as the quantity of land sold at different intervals, contracts fulfilled and outstanding, expenses for such activities as surveying, money forwarded to the treasurer, and delinquencies of purchasers.  At several points is interspersed supporting documentation, such as treasurer’s receipts and correspondence.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: As the body responsible for the general care and supervision of Massachusetts harbors and tidewaters, the Board of Harbor and Land Commissioners had as its primary function to insure that the channels were fully navigable and to otherwise protect, improve, and develop these areas.  St 1881, c 196 provided that the boundaries of municipalities bordering on the sea would extend to the line of the Commonwealth as already defined by law. The commissioners were to locate and define the boundaries between localities from the high water mark outward, and to file reports accompanied by suitable plans and exhibits, showing said boundary lines, with the appropriate registry of deeds and the office of the state secretary. Reports were issued by county: Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes and Nantucket, Plymouth and Norfolk, and Suffolk and Essex. –Accompanying plans are found in: Massachusetts. Office of the Secretary of State. Maps and plans ((M-Ar)50), and may be located through the Massachusetts Archives Shelflist Database (consult reference staff)
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by county
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Scope and Content: The State Primary School, opened at the State Almshouse at Monson in 1866 and continuing after the almshouse’s closing in 1872 until 1895, provided lodging, instruction, and employment for dependent and neglected children under age sixteen without settlement in the Commonwealth and some juvenile offenders.  Inmates were placed out on trial (often subsequently indentured) with families (originally by school inspectors–St 1866, c 209, s 7; then by school trustees–St 1880, c 208, s 1) and periodically monitored by the visiting agent of the Board of State Charities (St 1869, c 453, s 2; St 1870, c 359, s 2–in which called State Visiting Agency) and from 1879 by the Division of Visiting, Dept. of Indoor Poor, State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity (State Board of Lunacy and Charity from 1886); they were returned to school if arrangements were not mutually satisfactory (St 1870, c 359, s 3).  Series was created to administer this process, consisting of reports filed by visiting agents on inmates visited.
Arrangement: Arranged chronologically
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Scope and Content: Resolves 1858, c 26 appointed a committee to investigate and issue a report on public charitable institutions.The report recommended the founding of a Board of State Charities. The board and its successors from 1863 onward oversaw the Massachusetts state immigration and pauper relief functions, as well as the state’s charitable and correctional institutions.  Upon his appointment to the board as secretary in 1863, F.B. Sanborn set out to learn about and report on the charitable institutions in existence, including their objectives, history, annual cost, and results. This series, presumably created by the 1858 committee and by Sanborn, contains such compiled data, similar to that found in the board’s later annual reports ((M-Ar)1318S) per St 1867, c 209. –Vol. 1, arranged by county, gives summary tabular information, 1858-1863, on poor relief and almshouses for each town, including annual statistics on numbers served, costs and expenditures per person, and assessment of town property values. –Vol. 2 contains a narrative history of paupers and almshouses in Massachusetts, along with statistics and tables, including almshouse costs. Back of volume contains brief minutes of an 1865 meeting of the Commissioners on the Hours of Labor, of which Sanborn was also secretary (see its Administrative files ((M-Ar)1692X))
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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. –In 1955 the Massachusetts correctional system was reorganized, so that the State Farm at Bridgewater became the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater, commonly called MCI Bridgewater. With this change, Bridgewater’s admittance of misdemeanor convicts (since 1866), state charges (i.e., almshouse paupers, since 1872), and aged or infirm state prisoners (since 1890) was terminated, leaving the prison population (i.e., aside from Bridgewater State Hospital) almost entirely those with alcohol or drug-related convictions. In 1958, a specialized unit serving the whole state corrections system, the Massachusetts Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous, was added.  The population of MCI Bridgewater changed again with St 1971 c 1076, which abolished the crime of public intoxication, limiting drug and alcohol admissions to civil commitments, voluntary or otherwise; also abolished was the then-controversial unit for defective delinquents (since 1922). The Bridgewater State Hospital serving the insane was placed under separate administration in 1987, the Old Colony Correctional Center opened in 1987, and in 1990 the MCI addiction center was placed under the Southeastern Correctional Center, which had opened in 1976. Since by 1990 the Treatment Center of the Sexually Dangerous had also become a separate unit, at that point the existence of MCI Bridgewater as an administrative entity ended. After SECC’s closing in 2002, addiction treatment was provided at the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center. A Massachusetts Boot Camp for youthful offenders was located at Bridgewater from 1992 until after 2000.
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Scope and Content: Pursuant to St 1895, c 284 and RL 1902 c 10, s 17, the State House Commission approved state agency requisitions for and the sergeant-at-arms procured new furniture and fixtures for the State House and other state office buildings; they were succeeded in these functions in 1919 by the superintendent of buildings. Series was created by these agencies to process such requisitions and subsequent bids and orders for procurement of such furnishings
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Scope and Content: During the term of Endicott Peabody (1963-1965), the governor’s special assistant reviewed gubernatorial speech drafts prepared by the Research Dept.  Subject files served as a reference resource in the preparation of these drafts.
Arrangement: Arranged alphabetically by subject
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