Belknap to Publish Adams Papers; Butterfield to Edit Large Collection

The University's Belknap Press will soon publish the most inclusive private collection of American Historical Papers, Thomas B. Adams '33 of the Massachusetts Society announced yesterday.

The difficult task of editing the papers of the prominent Adams family is under the direction of Lyman H. Butterfield '30, who has also consented to lecture in American history here at the University. Butterfield, associate editor of the Jefferson Historical Papers at Princeton, calls the Adams family collection "unique, surpassing all others of its kind."

A number of scholars will help Butterfield with editorial problems, including Harvard historians Paul H. Buck, Mark DeWolfe Howe '28 of the Law School, Samuel E. Morison, and Arthur M. Schlesinger.

Over 300,000 pages

In the collection are upwards of 300,000 pages from unprinted diaries and letters of the Adams family, dating from pre-Revolutionary times through World War I. In addition to the published material, microfilms of the entire collection will be available to serious scholars. Walter M. Whitehill, Allston Burr Senior Tutor of Lowell House and a prime mover of the project, stated that "the first 88 reels will be distributed next week, with the remainder ready about the end of 1955."

Life Magazine is providing financial support for sorting and editing the papers. Life has the right to publish early editions of the Adams papers, as it did with Churchill's books.

Roger Butterfield, author of "The American Past," will act as liaison between Life and the Adams Papers editors. he hoped that the papers would also include graphic works of general public interest.

Not All Papers Read

Thomas B. Adams replied that "all the papers have not been read, but they all will be opened to the public." He added that they include a copy of the Declaration of Independence possibly older than the one in the Library of Congress.

The collection also comprises the complete diaries of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, and Charles Francis Adams, covering the years 1755 to 1886. "If these private papers were sold at an auction," Thomas B. Adams said, "They could bring over a million dollars."

For more than a century (1788 to 1905), the Adams family papers, growing in bulk and importance with each generation, were kept in the "Old House" of the Adams in Quincy, Mass, and in the Stone Library there.

The Adams trustees had broad powers to sell or transfer any of the property. Family papers could be transferred only to the United States of America, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or a town, city, or chartered institution.