Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System

Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System
Name	Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System
Abbreviation	MACRIS
Formation	1970s
Headquarters	Boston, Massachusetts
Parent organization	Massachusetts Historical Commission

Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System

The Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System is an online inventory and database documenting historic properties, districts, archaeological sites, and cultural landscapes across Massachusetts. It serves as a central reference for preservation professionals, municipal planners, architectural historians, and scholars working with resources related to Boston, Salem, Plymouth, Worcester, and other communities. The system links records to survey forms, National Register of Historic Places nominations, and municipal preservation inventories maintained by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and affiliated organizations such as the National Park Service and local historical societies.

Overview

MACRIS compiles documentation on residential, commercial, industrial, religious, and civic properties from Cape Cod to the Berkshires, integrating entries for individual buildings like the Old North Church (Boston), sites such as the Plymouth Rock environs, and districts including the Beacon Hill Historic District. The inventory cross-references structures associated with figures like John Adams, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, Frederick Law Olmsted, and firms such as McKim, Mead & White and H. H. Richardson. It also catalogs archaeological resources connected to Native American histories involving the Wampanoag and Nipmuc communities and maritime heritage tied to ports like New Bedford and Gloucester.

History and Development

Development began in the 1970s within the Massachusetts Historical Commission during a period of expanding preservation initiatives following the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and the establishment of the National Register of Historic Places. Early field surveys drew on methodologies favored by the Historic American Buildings Survey and the Historic American Engineering Record, and the program collaborated with state agencies such as the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and municipalities including Cambridge and Springfield. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s MACRIS expanded digital capabilities, incorporating data standards promoted by the Secretary of the Interior and coordinating with the National Archives and Records Administration. Partnerships with university programs at Harvard University, Boston University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and MIT supported scholarly documentation and GIS integration.

Database Structure and Content

The database organizes records by place name, builder, architect, property type, and National Register status, linking to survey forms, photographs, and maps. Entries include notable architects and firms such as Charles Bulfinch, Alexander Parris, Peabody and Stearns, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, and landscape designers like Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. It covers property types from colonial-era meetinghouses and Revolutionary War sites like the Old South Meeting House and Bunker Hill Monument to 19th- and 20th-century industrial complexes in Lowell and Lawrence associated with the Industrial Revolution in America. Archaeological components document precontact sites and colonial-period settlements with relevance to treaties such as the Treaty of Hartford (1638) and events like King Philip's War.

Technical structure relies on cataloging conventions similar to those used by the National Park Service and the Historic Resources Survey, and includes metadata compatible with Geographic Information Systems used by agencies such as the Esri community and state planning offices. Photographic archives reference collections held by institutions like the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and municipal archives in cities like Lawrence and Chicopee.

Access and Use

Public access is provided through an online portal maintained by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, enabling searches by town, street, architect, or National Register status for places such as Concord, Massachusetts, Lexington, Massachusetts, and Salem, Massachusetts. Preservation consultants preparing documentation for rehabilitation projects consult MACRIS alongside standards established by the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and federal programs administered by the National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration when projects intersect with historic resources. Municipal historic districts overseen by local bodies like the Boston Landmarks Commission and historical commissions in towns such as Cambridge and Newton use MACRIS entries to inform local design guidelines and review processes.

Researchers, genealogists, and educators draw on MACRIS for material on sites connected to cultural figures including Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Louisa May Alcott, and movements reflected in properties like Transcendentalism-era homesteads and Abolitionist meeting places in Barnstable and New Bedford.

Significance and Impact

MACRIS functions as an authoritative statewide repository supporting preservation policy, planning review, and heritage tourism that highlights destinations including the Freedom Trail, Old Sturbridge Village, and the Plymouth Plantation landscape. Its role in documenting endangered resources has influenced adaptive reuse projects at sites linked to industrialists and reformers such as Samuel Slater and William Lloyd Garrison, and has supported grants and tax incentive programs with ties to the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit framework. By aggregating records from municipal, state, and federal sources and connecting them to archival holdings at institutions like The Trustees of Reservations and the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, MACRIS aids stewardship of Massachusetts’s material heritage across urban, suburban, and rural contexts.

Category:Historic preservation in Massachusetts Category:Databases in Massachusetts