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Archive for the ‘The Acquisitions Table’ Category

The Acquisitions Table: Waterman Journals

January 25th, 2012, by Tracey Kry and Tom Knoles

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Waterman, Martha Elizabeth and Walter.  Journals, 1854-1880. Martha Elizabeth Drew was born in 1839 in Kingston, RI. She married Walter Waterman of Bridgewater, MA. This collection consists of three journals written by Martha, and one by Walter. Martha’s journal entries detail daily weather and daily activities such as calling on friends, and attending singing school [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Manuscript Music Book

January 11th, 2012, by Tracey Kry and Tom Knoles

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Music Book, 1819. A new addition to the Music Book Collection, this volume contains handwritten bars of both religious and secular music with no corresponding lyrics. Most songs are German hymns, and are simple compositions. Occasionally throughout the volume, the owner of this book transcribed more complicated pieces of music (Rondo Allegro, Trio, and Sonatina, [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Carrier’s Address to the Patrons of the Bridgeton Chronicle

January 3rd, 2012, by Lauren Hewes

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Carrier’s address to the patrons of the Bridgeton Chronicle, January 1, 1864. Bridgeton, NJ: James M. Seymour & Matthew Newell, 1863.  This carrier’s address came to AAS with a large group of New Jersey newspapers. Written at the end of 1863, the central poem, topped by a cut of a U.S. Mail train, focuses on [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The Californian

December 28th, 2011, by Vincent Golden

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The Californian (San Francisco, CA).  70 issues, 1864-1867. This bound volume of The Californian begins with the first issue of May 28, 1864. It was primarily a weekly literary periodical with some local news thrown in. Charles Henry Webb started the paper but Bret Harte soon succeeded him as the editor. One of the contributors [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The American Juvenile Pictoral Primer

December 21st, 2011, by Laura Wasowicz

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The American Juvenile Pictorial Primer. New York: Edward Dunigan, 1843. Up until about 1820, The New England Primer, with its religiously inspired alphabet, account of John Rogers’s burning at the stake, and religious dialogues, dominated the American primer market. By the 1840s, secular primers like The American Juvenile Primer featuring pictures and large type became [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Allan’s Lone Star Ballads

December 14th, 2011, by David Whitesell

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Allan, Francis D. Allan’s Lone Star ballads. A collection of Southern patriotic songs, made during Confederate times. Galveston: J.D. Sawyer, 1874. First obtainable edition of this important Confederate and Texas songster; Allan had previous issued a much shorter compilation in 1863, now extremely rare. In his preface, Allan explains that during the Civil War he [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Major Downing’s Advocate

November 21st, 2011, by Vincent Golden

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Jack Downing was a comic character created in 1830 by Seba Smith, who developed the country dialect-speaking character in a series of letters for the Portland Courier. As Downing became famous, Charles Augustus Davis imitated the style and wrote under the same name for New York papers. Davis started Major Downing’s Advocate on Mar. 12, [...]


The Acquisitions Table: A Representation of the Progress of Intemperance

November 16th, 2011, by Lauren Hewes

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A previously unrecorded satirical cartoon printed in Lowell, MA, by J.H. Varney, possibly a relation of (or pseudonym for) local newspaper publisher Samuel J. Varney. The cartoon references the 1840 repeal of a Massachusetts state law which regulated the sale of alcohol in quantities under 15 gallons. A large railroad carriage full of drunken men [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Dialogue on Slavery

November 9th, 2011, by David Whitesell

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A very rare self-published collection of poems by Holmes, a farmer in Greene County, OH east of Dayton. Most of the poems are short and predominantly religious in theme. Preceding these is Holmes’s 20-page “Dialogue on Slavery,” which offers an unusual poetic recapitulation of the religious, economic, and political arguments for and against slavery. Firmly [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Mathematics Exercise Book

November 2nd, 2011, by Tracey Kry and Tom Knoles

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This mathematic exercise book belonged bears the name of Samuel Geer, who was probably from Groton, Connecticut. The book is filled with mathematical calculations and problems, as well as solutions, written in a very neat hand. Questions involve liquid, cubic, long and square measurements, time (“How many minutes since the creation of the world…”), percentages, [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Great Excitement at Fredonia, KY

October 26th, 2011, by Lauren Hewes

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This large, colorful broadside was probably printed in two different locations. The red-printed border, which includes advertising slogans suitable for dry goods merchants (and a cartoon of a horse-drawn mail wagon and train with caption “Clear the tracks!!”), bears the Philadelphia imprint of John Duross. The bordered blank sheets were presumably sold to merchants across [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The Science and Art of Elocution and Oratory

October 17th, 2011, by Laura Wasowicz

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The frontispiece to this elocution text features a rare illustration of a young lady doing physical exercise along with her male colleagues to prepare for speaking. By 1867, female reformers like Lucy Stone had blazed new trails for women as public speakers before mixed audiences of men and women. To reflect this change in social [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The Deposit Courier

October 12th, 2011, by Vincent Golden

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AAS has few newspapers from Delaware County, NY and, until this spring, only two issues from the town of Deposit. Six years ago we were the underbidder at auction on a lot of the Deposit Courier. The person who won it was a Californian, John Aiello, who had grown up in Deposit. Mr. Aiello promised [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The Bridal Keepsake

October 5th, 2011, by David Whitesell

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AAS member (and publisher’s cloth binding expert) Steve Beare regularly alerts us to interesting bindings he spots on eBay. Thanks to his deeply appreciated referrals, over the past two years we have added many unusual bindings to the AAS collection. Perhaps the most remarkable of Steve’s finds is this gift book binding of fine-ribbed white [...]


The Acquisitions Table: A Practical Grammar of the English Language

September 28th, 2011, by Laura Wasowicz

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Don’t let the utilitarian title fool you!  In this case, it is not what was printed but what a former owner drew on a flyleaf that is the book’s true treasure. Mimicking a popular political cartoon of the time, a Union soldier chases a cross-dressing Jefferson Davis—giving us a rare glimpse into the intersection between [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Appeal to the Democracy

September 14th, 2011, by Vincent Golden

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Appeal to the Democracy (Augusta, ME).  Oct. 10, 1840. Over the past few years AAS has acquired a number of campaign newspapers. These are always desirable due to their short existence, rarity, and political content. The Whig Battering-Ram was a revival of a campaign paper with a similar title from the 1840 election. It supported [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Charles Eastman & Co. Letterbook

September 7th, 2011, by Tracey Kry and Tom Knoles

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Charles Eastman & Co. Letterbook, 1828 – 1834 The South Hadley (Massachusetts) Canal opened in 1795 to bypass waterfalls on the Connecticut River and it was one of the earliest canals in the United States. Steamboat traffic on the canal began in 1828. This letter book was kept by Charles Eastman (1803 – 1884) and [...]


The Acquisitions Table: The White Knight or The Rock of the Candle

August 31st, 2011, by Laura Wasowicz

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Brother Joseph. The White Knight or The Rock of the Candle. (Brother James’s Library). Philadelphia: Henry McGrath, 1867. American Catholic children’s literature is rare before 1850, and The White Knight exemplifies the modest boom in Catholic publishing after the Civil War. The back pages contain advertisements for the Catholic Pocket Library, and books for parochial [...]


The Acquisitions Table: Travels by Land & Water

August 24th, 2011, by David Whitesell

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Barnard, H. D. Travels by land & water. [Hartford: H. D. Barnard, 1860] A very rare and unusual biography and travel narrative authored by 11-year-old H. D. Barnard, who also set this small-format pamphlet in type and printed it on an amateur press. Born in Detroit, Barnard describes several long journeys to Michigan and Wisconsin, [...]