Company Profile

Company Overview

Founded in 1807 as “a fountain, at which all, who choose, may gratify their thirst for knowledge,” the Boston Athenæum has evolved into a bustling independent family library, cultural center, research library, and art museum located in an exquisite 1849/1913 National Historic Landmark structure on Boston’s historic Beacon Hill. 5,000 households maintain active memberships (which permit full use of the circulating library on all 12 floors) and 60,000 people, including researchers, tourists, and other members of the public, visit the Athenæum each year.

The collections include 150,000 rare books and manuscripts; 100,000 prints, drawings, and photographs; more than 800 paintings and sculptures; and more than 600,000 circulating and reference titles in the fields of history, biography, literature, and art. Highlights of the rare books collection include:

• The largest extant portion of George Washington’s personal library
• A major collection of Confederate imprints, first assembled by the historian and Athenaeum Trustee Francis Parkman
• An important collection of tracts and broadsides, including those gathered by John Adams and John Quincy Adams
• Major works of natural history, including John James Audubon’s Birds of America (to which the Athenaeum was an
original subscriber)
• The 17th-century theological library of King’s Chapel, Boston
• Private press books by Kelmscott, Ashendene, Doves, Eragny, and Vale
• The archives of the Merrymount Press
• One of the nation’s finest collections of contemporary artists’ books