To mark the start of a new year, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was traditional for newspapers to issue new years’ addresses, or carrier’s addresses. (Click here to see AAS’s online catalog records for over 1,300 of these addresses.) This extra supplement to the paper usually consisted of verses written in the voice [...]
The Comical Boys. Philadelphia: J.B. Keller, [ca. 1852] John B. Keller, like his New York counterparts Philip J. Cozans and Elton & Co., specialized in publishing cheap picture books with brashly hand-colored wood engravings. Comical Boys chronicles the misadventures of boys, as in the case of poor Christopher Crow, who ran into a pump handle. [...]
As the cataloger for AAS’s Prints in the Parlor project, I’ve been working with gift books and annuals now for fifteen months. In that time, I’ve found few images that represent scenes of Christmas. This is surprising because many of the annuals were given as Christmas gifts and have titles that you would think have [...]
Dennie, Joseph. Papers, 1789-1790. Joseph Dennie (1768-1812) was born in Boston. After graduating from Harvard College, Dennie studied law in Charlestown, NH. Two years later he began contributing essays to newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1796 he became editor of Isaiah Thomas’s The Farmer’s Weekly Museum and continued writing essays. In 1799 Dennie [...]
The record-breaking price for a double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America in London on December 9, 2010, prompts the question: Does the Society own a copy. The short answer is no — not the double elephant folio edition — but the story is more interesting than that. Indeed, AAS came [...]
Campaign Journal. Providence, RI. April 1, 1861. This rare campaign newspaper, published by the Providence Journal, supported a slate of Republican candidates for state office. One of the candidates was Sullivan Ballou, a successful lawyer and up-and-coming politician in Rhode Island, and a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War he dropped all [...]
An die freyen Erwähler von Berks County. Reading, PA, [ca. 1823] This German-language broadside from Berks County, PA, celebrates the life and achievements of Andrew Gregg (1755-1835). Gregg had served in the Delaware militia during the Revolutionary War and was elected a Congressman and Senator for Pennsylvania from 1807 to 1813. By 1823, Gregg had [...]
I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving feasts! Hopefully you didn’t overload too much on pumpkins, squash and sweet potatoes. If you can still stomach thinking about food, read on about the results of my historical pie adventure. I chose to follow the pumpkin pie recipe (from The White House Cookbook, 1877), but to mix [...]
This haunting lithograph depicting Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match-Girl is taken from the rare collection of Hans Andersen’s stories, Good Wishes for the Children, interpreted by A.A.B. and S.G.P., published by the famed Riverside Press in 1873. AAS acquired its copy from the illustrious bookman Benjamin Tighe in 1967, and up until now, the identity [...]
Clerk and the City, 1849 Schoolmarm, 1870
