Historical Note:

 The earliest system for dealing with miscellaneous manuscripts was pasting them into scrapbooks. Two large series were compiled: Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscripts and Rhode Island Manuscripts, totaling 28 volumes. The creation of scrapbooks ended around 1940. Single items and small collections arriving after 1940 have generally been arranged alphabetically. In addition, some larger collections have been broken up and distributed by name. Until 1994, there was no formal "collection" of these small files; they were shelved individually in loose folders, and interfiled with much larger collections.

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Scope and content:

 The Miscellaneous Manuscripts collection includes these loose files compiled since 1940. The contents vary widely, and could typically include: a single deed; a small collection of family correspondence; an account book; a military commission; a diary; a handful of shipping receipts. None of these small collections contain much more than a hundred items, or a couple of large volumes. The dates span from the seventeenth century to the present, though the bulk are probably from about 1750 to 1900.

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Provenance:

The items comprising this collection are from hundreds, probably thousands, of different accessions. A few general comments can be made. The bulk of these items were probably donated after 1940. Small accessions from before that date tended to be placed in scrapbooks under the heading of Rhode Island Historical Society Manuscripts. However, some of the earlier collections were broken up at a later date and dispersed by name throughout this collection, mostly during the early 1980s. This occurred with many family collections; another example is a collection of Barrington historical papers that were broken up at that time.

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Inventory (Arranged Alphabetically):

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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