Harvard's first special collections library began as the Treasure Room of Gore Hall in 1908.

Construction was largely completed by the fall of 1941, and the library opened on February 28, 1942.

[citation needed] Along with much else, Houghton holds collections of papers of Samuel Johnson, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, John Keats, Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family, Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, along with the papers of other notable transcendentalists.

[citation needed] Houghton also holds the letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, who commanded the 54th Massachusetts during the Civil War, and was killed during the assault on Fort Wagner.

[citation needed] Houghton mounts periodic exhibitions, open to the public, of various of its holdings.