The Acquisitions Table: Van Etten Bros. Catalog

Van Etten Bros., Manufacturers, Importers and Jobbers of Novelties, Notions, Books, Photographs, Chromos, Stereoscopic Views, and a Full Line of Goods Adapted Especially to the Wants of Canvassing Agents. Chicago: Birnery Hand &Co’s Steam Printing House, 1876. The Van Etten Bros. catalog is like a nineteenth-century SkyMall catalog, only instead of reading it while on ...

The Acquisitions Table: The Cider Maker’s Manual

Buell, Jonathan S.The Cider Makers’ Manual:a Practical Hand-Book, Which Embodies Treatises on the Apple; Construction of Cider Mills, Cider-Presses, Seed-Washers, and Cider Mill Machinery in General; Cider Making; Fermentation; Improved Processes in Refining Cider, and its Conversion into Wine & Champagne. Revised edition with additions.Buffalo:Published by Haas, Nauert& Co., 1874. Perhaps the best of 19th-century American ...

The Acquisitions Table: Aristotle’s Master-piece

Aristotle’s Master-piece, Completed. In Two Parts.The First Containing the Secrets of Generation… The Second Part being a Private Looking-Glass for the Female Sex. New-York: Printed for the Company of Flying Stationers, 1812. Aristotle’s Masterpiece is a fascinating hybrid text.  It used the veneer of a supposed classical author (Aristotle really had about as much to ...

Adopt-a-Book 2013: Poetry and Flowers

We hope to see you in the library in person tomorrow, Friday, April 5, at 6 p.m.  AAS’s 6th annual Adopt-a-Book event will bring together book-loving research fellows, staff, and supporters for an evening of viewing historical material recently purchased by the curators, sharing a drink, and, of course, raising funds for the Society’s future acquisitions. You ...

The Acquisitions Table: Leonard Deming Booksellers’ Stamp

Leonard Deming booksellers’ stamp. In Jonathan Edward’s The Salvation of All Men Strictly Examined.Boston: Published by C. Ewer, and T. Bedlington, 1824. Leonard Deming is best known to scholars today for being (along with Nathaniel Coverly) the other important purveyor of folk ballads and street literature in early nineteenth-century Boston and a prolific publisher of Jim ...

The Acquisitions Table: Atlas of Bergen County, New Jersey

Atlas of Bergen County, New Jersey.[Reading, Pa.]:  Published by C.C. Pease, successor to A.H. Walker, [1876]. According to the bookseller’s description, this Bergen County atlas is the most elaborate and attractive of all New Jersey county atlases of the 1870s.  It is also one of the most difficult to find, as many copies have fallen victim to ...

The Acquisitions Table: Dreka’s Dictionary Blotter

Dreka's Dictionary Blotter; or, Combination of Word-Book with a Blotting-Case. Philadelphia: Louis Dreka, [1873?] This book/blotter's decorative binding and striking fuchsia silk endpaper (seemingly still as bright as the day it was attached to the boards) look too glamorous to mark up, but apparently its previous owner disagreed. The ink stains inside prove it was used, ...

Last-Minute Christmas Shoppers, Your Moment Has Arrived!

Due to popular demand, more items have been added to our Adopt-a-Gift-Book catalog. Adopt now to avoid disappointment and in order to ensure you receive your gift card in time for Christmas. Or, perhaps consider adopting a gift book as a gift to yourself... and to AAS! Choice selections still remain available for adoption. ...

Historical Re-gifting: Adopt a Gift Book!

Jan 1/1846 A friend how sweet that sacred sound It sheds a heavenly music round Which falls with pleasure on the ear To cheer us while we tarry here. A friend Dedicatory poems like the one quoted above appear in many of the gift books in the American Antiquarian Society's collections. This particular inscription is in AAS's copy of The ...

Bicentennial Gifts: Early Wyoming Imprints

In the next couple of months, Past is Present will be highlighting a number of gifts received in honor of the American Antiquarian Society’s bicentennial.  Remember, there is still time to join the group of bicentennial donors. It continues to surprise me when I talk with people who are laboring under the misconception that AAS focuses ...

Talk about AAS Bicentennial History

Tomorrow, Thursday, April 19 - 7:30 p.m. "Celebrating the American Antiquarian Society, 1812-2012" Philip F. Gura Philip Gura, William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is the author of the just-published bicentennial history of the American Antiquarian Society. He will tell ...

Calling all Newsies: NY Paps for Adoption Here!

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Don't let the name fool you -- Adopt-a-Book is for newsies too. AAS's fifth annual Adopt-A-Book event is coming up this Tuesday, April 3, at 6 p.m. Browse the 2012 Adopt-A-Book Catalog to view the 150 items up for adoption.  Here are a few highlights of New York newspapers still available for adoption. ...

National Award and Standing Ovation for AAS’s Philip Lampi

The first ever Chairman's Commendation from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was awarded to AAS staff member Philip J. Lampi in a ceremony yesterday afternoon.  Local politicians, current and former AAS staff, and some of Lampi's many friends and colleagues gathered to honor his lifetime of research into early American election returns. Learn more by reading: the front ...