It remained in hiatus until 1890, after which it published extensively over the next 35 years and helped establish the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in 1902.

[2][3] The initial incarnation of the society was short-lived, expiring after only two years owing to the outbreak of the American Civil War.

The creation of the Proceedings of the Mississippi Historical Society was a result of Riley's campaign to up membership and incentivize due-paying members to stay.

[4] Riley published historical research books through MHS and some of those works contained contributions from Civil War veterans like Confederate general Stephen D.

[5][1][4] Beginning in 1898, the rejuvenated MHS began a series of 14 annual volumes entitled Publications of the Mississippi Historical Society, containing significant scholarship on the history of the state.

[3] For a brief year between 1952 and 1953 MHS was active, falling once more into dormancy until its most successful upstart in 1964 with the production of J. F. H. Claiborne’s book "Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State".

In addition, in 2007 the MHS invited Bolton and James W. Loewen, author of The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White, to speak at the annual meeting.