John J. Burns Library, Rare Books and Special Collections at Boston College, offers some of its collections on the Web. The largest is the Liturgy and Life Collection, approximately 1,200 artifacts selected from perhaps the "most comprehensive archive in America on the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church." Also available are Boston Gas Company photos, about 400 images from the 1880s to the 1970s, documenting both the company and the city of Boston, and Thomas P. O'Neill Photographs, primarily from O'Neill's years as Speaker of the US House of Representatives. All of the databases allow browsing as well as searching, very helpful for users who do not know if Saint Christopher is entered as St. or Saint. Unlike other religious history collections, many of the pictures in Liturgy & Life are images of objects that people owned and carried in their pockets, such as the nineteen Saint Christopher medals that I located with the browse function. Be sure to check out the Gas Company collection's fascinating views of pre-1900 Boston, including over 200 cyanotypes that reproduce beautifully on the Web.
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