Donate Personal or Family Papers

Do you have old family letters in the attic?  Your grandfather's diaries from the war in the basement?  Your mother's high school journal in a box in the garage?  Don't assume no one would be interested in them!  Historians today study all kinds of topics, not just politics and wars, but also family life, childhood, and other personal experiences.  And they are interested in people from all walks of life, rich and poor, black and white, male and female.  In fact, you'd probably be surprised at what researchers might find useful!  Please consider donating your Maryland-related personal or family papers to the Maryland Historical Society. 

The Society of American Archivists has developed an excellent guide to donating personal and family papers.  It is available at:

http://www.archivists.org/publications/donating-familyrecs.asp

If there are papers you would like to donate, please contact David Angerhofer at (410) 685-3750, ext. 378, or special_collections@mdhs.org.  If we are not the right repository for your collection, we will try to help you find an appropriate institution.

It would be great if you would donate some money along with your papers.  A donation of $25 to $50 per box of materials you give us would help us purchase archival, acid-free folders and boxes for them, ensuring they survive for years to come.  Document boxes--typically 2 or 3 are needed per bankers' box of donated material--can cost from $3-6 each, depending on the quantity ordered.  Acid-free folders can cost from 10-95 cents each, depending on the quantity ordered.  So any amount you could give us would be a great help.