Toward the end of his now-famous 1897 Atlantic Monthly essay, “Strivings of the Negro People,” W.E.B. DuBois states that the post-Civil War years brought for African Americans “the ideal of book-learning, the curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance.” Historians may note DuBois’ ultimate discontent with this ideal — the longing to achieve freedom through ‘book-learning” — [...]
Just a reminder that the best way to escape the dreary weather (besides a tropical vacation) is a relaxing evening with a glass of wine, delicious food, and some good books. If you agree, please join us tonight at the American Antiquarian Society for our annual Adopt-a-Book event beginning at 6pm. You may also attend [...]
AAS holds in its manuscripts collections an excerpted diary of a convict from the 19th century. It is a small unassuming volume of just under fifty pages on plain brown paper, and doesn’t visually grab your attention. It was the title on the front page that piqued my curiosity: Promiscuous Leaves from My Diary. A [...]
Beware of a swindler!! New York: J.W. Bell, 1835. This spectacular broadside documents the accusations of printer Jared W. Bell (1798?-1870) against a former journeyman, James B. Whitney. Bell accuses Whitney, who became a lieutenant commandant in the New York artillery, of embezzling money from Bell’s printing business. Bell was notoriously difficult. In 1821 he [...]
Some of the American Antiquarian Society’s collection materials have been on our shelves for almost 200 years, but other items are “new” antiquities. New, that is, in the way that hand-me-downs from your older sister are new. They are new to us even if they have existed for hundreds of years elsewhere. The AAS curators [...]
Here at AAS we have lots of small collections that are safely tucked away, accessible only due to the knowledge of the reference staff, catalogers, or curators who bump into them occasionally when searching for other things. As we work our way through our holdings we try to increase access to these “lost” collections by [...]
All the votes have been counted and the winner is…. Penny! Penny’s caption won our hearts and received the most thumbs up in Past is Present‘s first humorous what-caption-would-you-write contest. Her submission had the added bonus of connecting to the original post on Slate, before the hype by AAS’s curator of Graphic Arts, Lauren Hewes. [...]
How about hoary, pigtaily, brontosaurian, rusty-dusty, mossy-backed, or square-toed? If so, then you belong with us! Each of these terms were once synonyms for Antiquarian, according to AAS’s recently acquired copy of the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary. A recent New York Times article described the historical thesaurus: “Archaism, it turns out, is [...]
This is for all the historical comedians out there … Seeing the illustration above, titled “The Naughty Boy,” in Lauren’s post Slate, Before the Hype started me wondering what led up to this scene. There has to be a good story here. The sulky pout. The curls and the dress (which to modern eyes appear [...]
Music religious thoughts inspires, And kindles in us pure desires; Gives pleasure to a well-tun’d mind, The most exalted and refin’d Music the coldest heart can warm, The hardest melt, the fiercest charm; Disarm the savage of his rage, Dispel our cares, and pains assuage: With joy it can our souls inspire, And tune our [...]
Like the other catalogers here at AAS, part of my job as the Graphic Arts cataloger is to figure out the artists, sitters, publishers and others who contributed to the works in the collection. So when I catalogued a large color lithograph view of Portland, Oregon from 1891, I noticed that the copyright holders were [...]
March 1, 2010 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the pianist composer Frédéric François Chopin (1810-1849). Chopin was born near Warsaw and lived much of his short life in France so you may be asking yourself why on earth there is a post about him on the blog of the American Antiquarian Society. [...]
Schoolmarm, 1870
