The online catalogue describes and illustrates individual samples of wallpaper, historic photographs of wallpaper in situ, and ephemera dealing with the wallpaper industry. There are currently over 4000 records in the database; it will be updated as additional categories are catalogued and new items come into Historic New England's collection. The wallpaper images range from pristine examples with complete repeats to small fragments that are part of a sequence in a particular room.

There is an enormous amount of information included in the catalogue. As with any project of this magnitude, there are bound to be some errors and inconsistencies. We encourage you to contact us when you find one so we can correct the record. Please send corrections and other comments to wallpaper@historicnewengland.org.

Below are a few tips to help in your search.

• Familiarize yourself with the categories listed in the drop-down menus in fields with and arrow.
   
• Then try a simple search. For example, click on "Landscape Figure" under "Style" and then look at the "Wallpaper Details" page for several of the papers to see the various types of information that are included.
   
• To find a wallpaper used in a particular town in New England, type in the name of the town under "Provenance". For example, type in Danvers to find papers from houses in Danvers, MA.
   
• If you are looking for appropriate wallpapers for a house built in 1845, type in 1840 in the "Year From" and 1850 in the "Year To" to find a range of styles available at the time.
   
• For "Decorative Motifs", search by individual motif and not a combination. For example, floral not floral and ribbon.
   
• For "Country of Origin", you may need to do several searches. For example, for papers made in the USA, search under USA, USA? (meaning the paper was probably made in the USA), or USA or France (meaning the paper could have been made in either country.)
   
• "Manufacturers, Designers and Suppliers" are listed alphabetically under their complete name. For example, William Morris is listed in the drop-down menu under W. Some companies have changed their names over the years; search under both Birge and M.H. Birge for wallpapers produced by this Buffalo company.
   
• Most Scenic wallpapers are listed under their proper French name, not under one of the many American translations.
   
• Make sure to click the "Reset" button at the bottom of the search form before each new search.