We've had an interesting lineup of public programs so far this spring, exploring everything from nineteenth-century theater and attitudes towards alcohol to what life was like for free and enslaved African Americans in Massachusetts during the prelude to the Revolutionary War. Tomorrow, Thursday, May 29, at 7:00 p.m., we'll continue our series with a talk by ...
On September 6, 1774, 4,622 militiamen from 37 towns marched into Worcester, shiretown for the county, closed the Royal courts, and forced each court official to resign. Forming two lines, they forced each court official, hat in hand, to disavow the recent Massachusetts Government Act, which revoked the Province’s charter and disenfranchised its citizens. With ...
The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin. Philadelphia: Davis, Porter & Coates, ca. 1866-1868. This poignantly humorous image of the owl digging departed Cock Robin’s grave is taken from an “indestructible” picture book that had its pages reinforced with cloth for the hard use of young and eager hands. This hand-colored wood engraving is characteristic ...
This image, a favorite around AAS, is part of a series a lithographs that circulated in the late 1820s and early 1830s, depicting people as an amalgamation of various objects: shells, vegetables, paintings, and in this instance, relics. This graphic motif harkens back to the Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose portrait heads made of similar ...
Those of you who follow the Society's blog are aware that the last week in April was Preservation Week, a period set aside by the American Libraries Association to focus on the care and conservation of collections material. We take preservation seriously at AAS. The word is part of our core mission, in fact. We have ...
To continue the celebration of the American Library Association’s 2014 Preservation Week held back in April (and mentioned in an earlier post), we're bringing you a behind-the-scenes peek into a conservation project that started just a couple weeks ago on a recent acquisition – a Bay Psalm Book from 1709. The revitalization process for this ...
It’s an age-old question: What is the way to a woman’s heart? (It’s also a timely question, with Mother’s Day this coming weekend.) We often hear the way to a man’s heart is food, beer, or sports. To a woman’s, it’s usually said that it’s chocolate, jewelry, clothing, or shoes. If we dig a little ...
Today is Worcester County’s first-ever online giving challenge, Greater Worcester GIVES, and the American Antiquarian Society is proud to be participating. Please show your support for AAS – and for the community we are part of – by donating to us in the challenge before midnight EST so that we can contribute a strong total ...
Tomorrow night the Society is holding its seventh annual Adopt-a-Book event at Antiquarian Hall from 6:00 to 8:00pm. Come join us for libations and snacks (generously donated this year by Ed Hyder, Panera, and Crown Bakery). Each of the Society's curators has selected material for adoption including paper dolls, ledger books, newspapers, lithographs, and bound ...
Do you remember – especially before the advent of the internet - being in need of a definition or a proper spelling of a word and turning to your home’s, school’s, or work’s copy of a Merriam-Webster dictionary? That dictionary you used was based on the life’s work of one ambitious American, Noah Webster. Webster’s legacy continues ...
