While trolling for children’s books and games at the Papermania fair held several weeks ago in the basement of the Hartford Civic Center (you could hear the marching band playing for the UConn men’s basketball game upstairs), I made the happy discovery of this aptly titled Parlor Foot-ball Game, issued by picture book and game ...
What do Red Jacket, Pompey Fleet, James Macpherson, Mary Washington, and Geoffrey Chaucer have in common? They all are depicted in, influences for, or creators of the 300 (give or take a few, depending on how you count them) broadside ballads Isaiah Thomas collected from Boston printer Nathaniel Coverly in 1814. Mostly printed in Coverly’s ...
Sean Moore is Associate Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire and recently completed an American Antiquarian Society-National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship at the Society. His work has received support from a variety of institutions, including the John Carter Brown Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Fulbright program, and he has just ...
Last week, Brenna gave an overview of the dime novel genre and the best known American publishers. This week, she examines the difficulties associated with cataloging the dime novels. Let's face it: dime novels are cool and fun. But though our collection is large, they have been sitting in the stacks, mostly uncataloged, for decades. The ...
With support from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati we were able to bring our popular Isaiah Thomas-Patriot Printer program to communities in northern Worcester County. After one such performance at the Leominster Public Library, Donald Hicks came up to me and we chatted about Isaiah Thomas’s involvement with the Masonic order. Mr. Hicks, a ...
“The intelligent American public will find in the Dime Publications of the house of Beadle and Company works which meet not only a great popular want of excellent books and cheap rates, but which are, in every respect, deserving of the wide popularity to which they have attained.” – from ‘A word to those who desire ...
I was working at the reference desk recently, when our sharp-eyed library assistant Daniel Boudreau brought to my attention a volume that had crossed the desk the previous day. A scholar researching the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley had requested the item, which was a fully illustrated book made with lithographic images and text. Dan ...
Connecticut Indictments, 1742-1781. These five indictments from Connecticut are illustrative of the colony and state’s strict laws. The indictments, which describe the incidents and are signed by witnesses, show a variety of transgressions taking place in Norwich and Durham, Connecticut, starting in the mid-eighteenth century. Among the offenses are consuming alcohol, the use of profanity, fighting, playing ...
“A book holds a house of gold.” – Chinese proverb AAS has quite a variety of American newspapers in different languages: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Welsh, Cherokee, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and Hawaiian. There is one language, however, that provided a unique challenge for printers. All of the newspapers above are letterpress. Each letter is ...
