To mark February 29, 2012, we selected a few items from the collection to display in our Reading Room.  For those of you who can not make it to Worcester in February, this post will have to substitute.  The two invitations to Leap Year parties date from the 1860s, with one featuring a quadrille band and dancing until 3:00am.  The play Leap Year is a comical farce published around 1860, and was performed in Boston in 1862 as shown in the broadside playbill.  The 1872 McLoughlin publication, although part of the Society’s children’s literature collection, was likely intended for an adult audience.  The humorous illustrations feature all sorts of unmarried women seeking marriageable men in banks, taverns and on the street.

A search in the American Historical Newspaper database resulted in hundreds of articles and essays in January and February issues of leap years, often satirizing unmarried women and bachelors.  An article in an 1804 issue of the Dover, New Hampshire Sun states:

It has from time immemorial been considered a rightful prerogative of the ladies in LEAP YEAR, without subjecting themselves to any imputation or want of modesty, to make the first advances in negotiations for matrimonial alliances.

An 1820 headline reads “Old Bachelors, Look Out!” and a mock “Bachelor’s petition” appeared in The American Citizen from Jackson, Michigan in 1852, encouraging “unmarried ladies of all kinds, sizes, and ages” to propose because most bachelors were really just shy and would make good husbands.

All of this raises interesting questions about gender roles, marriage, and American society – especially after 1860, when eligible, unmarried men were in extremely short supply due to the Civil War. The war resulted in over 600,000 male deaths in this country, knocking social mores on their heels. It is all well and good to make fun and joke, but it is very likely that for a few leap years (1864, 1868, 1872, 1876), women took advantage of the relaxation of the rules and proposed to those men that could help them build a family and a future in the healing nation.

According to Jane, she thinks it is quite possible that the image was directly commissioned by Mahlon Day either in 1830, or right around that time. Jane guesses that the man standing with what could be money or a pile of tracts in his hand is an employee of the house and that the mother with baby and son are needy, but not indigent. Jane brings up the good point that the man in the doorway is not particularly well dressed, and his hat is literally jammed on his head. Jane also thinks it is possible that the coach in the street (better revealed in her copy) carried the woman to the house. We both agree that the scene seems to be set in New York during winter, perhaps Christmas time, and that the object of the image seems to be the importance of providing spiritual/corporal aid to those in need. Finally, Jane’s copy of the image has the telling caption lacking in the imperfect AAS copy:

I have food whole others starve, Or beg from door to door.

Unfortunately, the identity of the engraver is still ambiguous; this image is not among those found in the Alexander Anderson engraving proof books held at New York Public Library. But with Jane’s input, we have a better idea of the image’s meaning.

Further Reading:

If you are interested in learning more about the illustrations that we do know were done by Alexander Anderson, you will definitely want to get your hands on this three volume set.

Pomeroy, Jane R. Alexander Anderson, 1775-1870, Wood Engraver and Illustrator, an Annotated Bibliography. 3 Volumes. New Castle, DE and Worcester, MA: Oak Knoll Press and The American Antiquarian Society, 2005. [available for purchase from Oak Knoll]

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 Henry Clay and was published by the Ohio State Journal, edited by Rufus B. Sage. Only one file is known of this title. Appeal to the Democracy was a Democratic Republican paper supporting Martin Van Buren for President. This paper was issued during elections in 1838, 1840, and 1844, but only two issues were known from the 1840 election until this one turned up.

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 contains copies of outgoing correspondence.  Charles Eastman and Co. was engaged in the manufacturing and wholesale trade of buttons, lastings, sheets, fabrics, pins and hardware.  His letterbook contains over 100 letters relating to his business trade on the canal.  The volume also contains two inventories, apparently for a store, from 1829

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 libraries published in England, Ireland, and Scotland—giving us a glimpse into the transatlantic world of Anglo-American 19th-century Catholic publishing.

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, and several shorter trips within southern New England, that he took with his father. Another brief chapter describes a visit on board the S.S. Great Eastern while docked in New York during its maiden voyage to the United States.

Lewis Bradford, a descendant of Governor William Bradford, and son of Levi Bradford and Elizabeth Lewis Bradford, was born in Plympton, Massachusetts in 1768.  Lewis lived his entire life in the town of Plympton, working as the town clerk for forty years.  In addition to his work, Bradford was a member of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society, and was an avid historical researcher.  Bradford never married, and died from a fall from a carriage in 1851 at the age of 83.  This collection of letters from Bradford are all addressed to his younger brother, Major Levi Bradford (1772 – ), while Levi was living in New York.  The letters speak mostly of the goings-on in Plympton, updating Levi as to births, deaths, marriages, new ministers, court cases, new buildings (“This is a world of changes – the new houses built in Plympton, and several new roads…”) as well as family gossip. Bradford’s pious and polite attitude comes through in these letters, especially when having to pass along unfortunate family news – “It is rather of an unpleasant task to write about unpleasant things which take place in families, but perhaps it is not amiss for different branches of the same family to know them.”

Striped publisher’s cloth bindings are rare, and such a binding on a children’s book in good condition is even rarer. The charming gilt vignette of boys at play puts an added layer on an already delightful binding.

Rarely does one see “Papantonio-quality” early American bindings on the market any more, but we were fortunate to add this example to AAS’s celebrated Bindings Collection, which boasts the Michael Papantonio collection as its nucleus. John Bidwell has described the 1807 edition of Barlow’s Columbiad as “the first American-made deluxe book to be manufactured on a cost-is-no-object basis.” It was not a financial success, however, and a large portion of the 1,000 copies were remaindered in the mid-1810s. A surprising number of the remaindered copies were dressed before purchase in extra-gilt leather bindings, no doubt so that they could be marketed in bookshops as luxury objects. This example now joins the several already in the AAS Bindings Collection. Bound in full mottled calf, with marbled edges and lavender endleaves, the binding has extensive blind tooling not visible in the image. The volume’s bookbinder is unidentified, though it shares a gilt roll with another binding signed by J. Katez of Philadelphia. We first saw this volume—unfortunately, five minutes too late—at the secondary Boston “Garage” book fair last November. But its lucky purchaser (and stalwart AAS member) Joseph F. Felcone has now permitted us to acquire it on very favorable terms.

AAS curators have always found this fair to be an excellent opportunity to acquire new treasures for the collection. If you like to collect, or are simply curious to attend the fair, dealers are more than happy to answer questions and let you browse their books. Even better, fair promoter Marvin Getman has generously offered free admission (normally $7 per person) to all who print a copy of the complimentary pass below and present it at the door.

Complimentary pass

Ministry of the Interior building in Havana with giant steel image of Che Guevara, 2011

Here is a link to a short piece I recently wrote about a trip to Cuba in January sponsored by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. The piece appeared in Mass Humanities’ blog The Public Humanist. My excuse for mentioning it on this blog is the fact that 9 of the 21 people on the trip were members of AAS. That is a remarkable number given that only 287 of AAS’s 953 members are Massachusetts residents and that the state’s population is about 6.5 million.

"Holiday in Havana, Cuba," late nineteenth-century view from the AAS Stereograph Collection

The trip to Cuba also provides an opportunity to mention a part of AAS collections that is not well-known.  While AAS may not be the first place you think of when doing research on Cuba, we actually have an impressive amount of material about the island.  An earlier post on Past is Present mentioned our recent acquisition of a wonderful collection of early Cuban newspapers, but there’s more Cuban material to be found at AAS by searching our two main online resources:

• AAS online catalog: Searching for Cuba results in almost 400 records.  Limit your search by type of item (i.e. manuscripts, serials, or graphic arts) or by date to winnow down your results.

• AAS website: Searching here will help you locate material listed in graphic arts inventories, lists of newspapers recently acquired, and manuscript collection finding aids. These additional online resources list items not necessarily in the AAS online catalog yet (although we’re working on it!). A search of the AAS website yields a few dozen hits from other collections with Cuba material.

While not all of us can travel to present-day Cuba, AAS always provides the opportunity to travel to Cuba’s past.

A late nineteenth-century stereograph of Obispo, Havana's main shopping street from the AAS Stereograph Collection

Two Examples from AAS Daguerreotype Collection
(see the online illustrated inventory for many more)

Above: Mrs. Samuel (L.E.R. Treadwell) Woodward (d. 1857), sixth plate daguerreotype, 1856;

Right: Luther Holman Hale (1823-1885), sixth plate daguerreotype, late 1840's

Click either image to enlarge.

We have blogged about photographs elsewhere, and, if you want more images, you can certainly link to any of the Society’s wonderful online photographic resources to see more. But today we are thinking about the first photograph, when the whole idea was new and the technology was completely mystical to most Americans.  We don’t necessarily want to look at images – but we have included a couple here for your viewing pleasure.  Mainly what we are interested in is how daguerreotypes were perceived by those early consumers of this new technology.  Often we rely on critical reviews in periodicals or newspapers for this sort of information, but every once in a while, we get a rare first-person account.

Item from the Emory Washburn Papers, which AAS acquired in 2009

Recently one of our valued volunteers, Jane Dewey, was helping us to process the Society’s Emory Washburn (1800-1877) Papers (you can read more about this recent acquisiton in our Fall 2009 Almanac). While working with the collection, Jane discovered an interesting quote about a daguerreotype. In 1841, just a few years after the technology was invented and made available in the U.S., the future Massachusetts governor sat for his portrait in Worcester or Boston. He sent the image by mail to his wife, who, with their three children, was visiting her parents in Walpole, New Hampshire.  Alas, the American Antiquarian Society does not have the 1841 daguerreotype, just a very important letter from Mrs. Washburn back to her husband, written upon receipt of the portrait.  This is what she wrote on July 29, 1841:

I thank you most sincerely for sending the daguerreotype – to me it is invaluable. The truth of sunlight cannot be questioned or criticized.  The dimness and indistinctness at first sight are pleasant to me in a miniature; you look at it, it seems like a shadow or a spirit; you turn it into a stronger light & the spirit becomes embodied.  The longer you look & the brighter the light; the more & more you find comes out & he seems to be yours only. He seems to be yours, bright, clear & distinct, but dim, unreal & shadowy to others – & this feeling of monopoly, love, in its selfishness, likes. Father and Mother were affected almost to tears.  Minnie declared it looked like Mr. Van Buren. Charlie said at first it was a little looking glass and then smiling said he “could see his Father, Mr. Washburn in it.” Emory said, “That is my Father.”

Later photograph of Emory Washburn

In 1841 Minnie Washburn was age 10, Charlie was 8, and little Emory was just 5.  One can almost picture the family gathered together in the parlor in New Hampshire passing around the small silvery daguerreotype and exclaiming over the surface, the image of Emory Washburn looking back at them.  It must have been a somewhat disconcerting feeling to see an image of a loved one, reduced in size, set in a small book-like case, knowing in reality that their father was miles away in Massachusetts.  This might be akin to our modern apps like FaceTime or Skype – where we can see people half way around the world and talk to them, too!  The delight we take in these new developments is exactly like the feeling captured in Mrs. Washburn’s letter.

If you think you might know where the original image of Emory Washburn lives, do let us know!  We have no idea who the photographer might be and would be delighted to learn more.  The Society has several images of Emory Washburn in his later years, and would love to see him at age 41, looking out of the mirrored surface of the daguerreotype, a confident lawyer and young father.

In a wonderful turn of serendipity, I recently received a phone call from an AAS member who was about to purchase a copy of this edition. As it turns out this copy had an inscription to “Mr. Mifflin” (George H. Mifflin of the Riverside Press) signed by Avis A. Bigelow and S.G. Putnam. My AAS friend wanted to know if I knew anything about either of them. This question took me to our copy of Who Was Who in American Art. I discovered that S.G. Putnam could have been either Stephen Greeley Putnam, a wood engraver born in 1852 who studied with American artists Henry Walker Herrick and Elias J. Whitney, or Sarah Gould Putnam, a portrait painter who was active in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Both artists exhibited in the late nineteenth century.

Fortunately for me, I searched Worldcat.org, and discovered that Massachusetts Historical Society has the diaries and papers of Boston portrait painter Sarah Gooll Putnam (1851-1912). Reading the thorough collection description, I found that MHS also has extensive holdings of Miss Putnam’s pencil sketches, a fact I found striking given the soft pencil quality of the lithographs in Good Wishes for the Children. It turns out that Sarah Gooll Putnam was a wealthy Boston socialite who spent most of her life in Boston’s Back Bay when she was not traveling in Europe and the American West. She exhibited successfully in Boston, Chicago, and New York, with the likes of John LaFarge. All of this information was promising, but not conclusive. I eagerly scanned the contents guide, and I discovered what I was hunting for: Miss Putnam’s photograph of Hans Christian Andersen with the caption, “Photograph sent to me through Mr. Horace Scudder, April 27th, 1874”–within a year of my book’s publication! Horace Scudder was the legendary children’s book author and long-time editor for the Riverside Press.

At this point, I delved into AAS’s truly first rate collection of secondary literature: I discovered that AAS has a copy of The Andersen-Scudder Letters, published in 1941. Sure enough, I found the following passage in a letter from Horace Scudder to Hans Christian Andersen, dated January 15, 1874:

I sent you … a little book which has a history. It is entitled Hans Andersen’s Good Wishes for Children, interpreted by A.A.B. and S.G.P. These two young ladies, Misses Bigelow and Putnam, of Boston, wished to contribute something in aid of the Children’s Hospital, a very worthy and humane institution in Boston. Accordingly, Miss Bigelow translated several of your stories anew from the German version and Miss Putnam drew on stone the accompanying illustrations. We printed the book for them and I begged them to let me send you a copy with their autographs. … it would give me very great pleasure if I might be the means of securing from them one of your valued letters with photographs. … they are not professional author and artist, but ladies in refined society.

Andersen responded by sending both young ladies his photograph.

In short, Hans Andersen’s Good Wishes for the Children deserves a second look, not just because of its rarity, but because of the clearly original illustrations by an artist whose work has been partially obscured by anonymity and her nineteenth-century status as a “lady” (read permanently amateur) artist. The time has come to enjoy her contribution to Hans Andersen’s Good Wishes for Children as the masterpiece that it is.

Now, if I only had the same success in uncovering the life and career of Avis A. Bigelow…

All Hallows Eve was not a particularly big holiday in America during the 1840s and 1850s, when most of the gift books were published, but there are a few mentions of the day. The illustration “Halloween” from The Mignonette (New York, c1856-57) is pretty typical of representations of the holiday. It depicts young people and an elderly couple gathered around a fire. The evening was more for young adults, and was one filled with roasted chestnuts and corn, storytelling, and sparking (flirtations with the opposite sex), and not costumes and candy or spook-tacular gore.

However, there are many other examples of frightening images in American gift books that are not related to Halloween but instead illustrate the Gothic-style prose and poetry of the era. These include dramatic pictures of murder, war, abuse, and revenge. An engraving of a woman with a knife entitled “Jealousy” from Gems of beauty (Boston, c1848) depicts a violent-looking woman about to stab her sleeping victim. Other illustrations include skeletons at parties, women buried alive, witches telling fortunes, and night scenes of shadowy city streets.

Finally, there is the wonderful image of “The Ghost Book,” which depicts a group of small boys gathered around a central child who is reading. Their eyes are wide with horror as they look around the shadowy yard. This image first appears in a Philadelphia annual The Gift (ca. 1839), and accompanies a story by Eliza Leslie about a diary kept by a traveler staying in a haunted bedroom. The boys have found the diary and are reading about spirits hiding in a dark closet under the eaves and pools of old blood from a murder committed long ago. In the end it turns out the diarist, an itinerant artist, was writing a rough draft of a story he hoped to have published in a “periodical of the day.” The boys are greatly relieved.

The image was re-used five years later in the 1844 Literary Souvenir, also published in Philadelphia, but the title was changed to “The Fright” in order to better illustrate a tale of the overactive imagination of boys written by George G. White. In White’s version, the central boy is described as

too strongly addicted to the marvelous. His brain was half turned from listening to the tales of an old nurse of the family, and reading romances and ballads.

This time the book the boys read is a cheaply printed text, purchased in town, Tales of Terror or the Mysteries of Magic. The story does not end well for the main character. He is so frightened by the words he reads aloud that

the shock had been too much for his reason. He had fallen victim to the follies of superstition, and remained an idiot for life.

Gads! What would he have made of the shrieking dementors in Harry Potter? All in all, the gift books provide us with evidence of nineteenth-century concepts of fear and darkness and ghosts and naughty boys – what more could we ask to mark the arrival of Halloween in 2010?

Advertisers, especially theater promoters and circus printers, are the most frequent users of excitable punctuation on their material.   The designer of an 1860 broadside advertising a tight rope walker in Worcester increases the use of exclamation points as he moves down the sheet, using multiple points after each line.  An 1845 broadside in the collection telling of a recent murder uses various sized type and punctuation to draw the eye.  The large type at the top of the sheet is accompanied by an equally large exclamation point.  Keep in mind that the $2,000 reward offered is the equivalent of $58,000 in today’s dollars – certainly something that merited exclamation!

In addition to the always eye-catching exclamation point, there are numerous ballad broadsides set in poetic lines ending with commas, semi-colons, dashes, and ellipses, including the 1772 song Love in a tub, or, -- The merchant outwitted by the vintner (commas and dashes right there in the title!).  Early printings such as this example do not necessarily follow modern punctuation standards set forth by publications such as the Chicago Manual of Style, but they get the point across with solid attention to design, making it easy for the eye to read each line and indicating pauses.

So go on out and celebrate National Punctuation Day in whatever manner you choose.  Last year, contestants made food in the shape of their favorite mark – a meatloaf shaped like a question mark was a popular entry.  This year school students, copy editors, and writers are entering haiku poetry about punctuation on the National Punctuation Day website.  As for me, I’ll be keeping an eye out for posters and signs, the modern equivalent of the early broadside. You never know when you might see multiple exclamation points crying out from the wall at the vet’s office (“Lost dog!!!!!!!”) or question marks on the side of a city building (“Did you vote today?”) or on a billboard for pest control looming over the highway on your commute (“Got ants?”).

While going through the folders concerning Hawaii, we discovered the simple drawing of the printing office in Honolulu shown here.  The ink drawing features accents and shading done in graphite and is dated August 14, 1866.  It shows a three story building with large windows.  The printing office was built in 1841 out of bleached coral blocks cut from the reef in the nearby ocean.  We were very excited to find the drawing, as the Society is home to outstanding examples of Hawaiian printing, including newspapers, books and maps.  We also hold a collection of rare early Hawaiian engraved views produced by students at the Lahainaluna School on the island of Maui in the 1830s and 1840s.  (An illustrated inventory of these images is available online at http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/hawaiianengravings.htm.)

We were chatting about how great it would be to add this newly discovered view of the printing office on Honolulu to the Drawings Collection at the Society, when I noticed the sheet was folded over.  After unfolding, we discovered the second drawing inside, also illustrated here, showing the island of Maui from the water!  This drawing is closely based on the Lahainaluna School engraving with the same title, already in our collection. Both are called “Maui from the anchorage at Lahaina” although the artist of the drawing has added the subtitle “A distant view” as well as marginalia featuring two small doodles of a carved stick with a wide-mouthed tiki head.  We know the print was done by a student named Kalama after a drawing by K. L.  Could this be the original drawing for the engraving?  Or is this a later picture based on the engraving?  The 1866 date on the accompanying drawing of the printing shop seems to argue for the latter. The drawing will be added to the Society’s drawing inventory and be made available online and we shall continue to work our way through the U.S. Views over the coming months.  Who knows what additional treasures we may find!

Click on image to see more detail

This image above of a woman reading in a busy interior, surrounded by household chaos appears in two gift books in the Society’s large collection, one from 1849 and one from 1853. The main figure sits completely engrossed in her book while the baby cries and a cat and a dog steal food. A tradesman demands payment and the lunch dishes are still on the table at 3:00. The illustration is a visual treatise on the dangers of novel reading. One does not even need to read the accompanying two page text to get the point that the editor of this particular annual was against novels for women. He describes the young woman as a figure of “ill-regulated mind, who has no appreciation of the value of a well-ordered household, or for the sacred duties of a wife and mother, and who delights only in the false excitement of an over-fed and pampered imagination.” Perhaps the young housewife is engrossed in a title such as The Monks of Monk-Hall: A Romance of Philadelphia Life, Mystery, and Crime (published in 1845) or Hen-Pecked Husband, a Novel (published in 1848). These sound so much more compelling than your standard religious text, volume on housekeeping or cookery or other wholesome books with titles like Sketch of my Friend’s Family: Intended to Suggest Some Practical Hints on Religion and Domestic Manners (1848) or Sayings and Doings; or Proverbs and Practice (1849). Ho hum. Given the choice, I’d rather read a novel, too.

AAS has many texts on the dangers of reading novels, including an essay by a minister published in 1853 entitled, Pernicious Fiction: or, The Tendencies and Results of Indiscriminate Novel Reading. Novels were seen as a distraction from the moral seriousness of life, a waste of time when young women could be industriously improving themselves or their households. Fortunately for all of us who wasted hours this summer reading novels (myself included), the nineteenth-century naysayers were defeated by the overwhelming popularity of the novel which continues even today.

As I was preparing to blog about this image, which was revealed during our current Prints in the Parlor cataloging project, a series of events transpired here under the dome, which, while not unusual, did give me pause. The volume with the image was actually being photographed this morning and was removed from the office of our digitizer so I could quote from the text. As I was transcribing the quote above a reader approached the reference desk. He is working on a film about the history of dogs in domestic spaces and he handed me a call slip for the “The Novel Reader” image. Three people needing to access the same image (myself, the digitizer, and the reader) at nearly the same moment is a bit wondrous – perhaps I should write a novel about it!

The inventory project and conservation survey are reminders of the absolutely stunning depth of the Society’s collection of eighteenth-century American engravings. We hold an impression of nearly every print Revere created. The iconographic prints like The Bloody Massacre Perpetuated in King Street, Boston (shown above) and Boston, Ships Landing Their Troops, both from 1770, form the heart of the collection. However, we also have examples of Revere’s work in currency, bookplates (including the one at left he made for Society founder, Isaiah Thomas), clock labels, and trade cards. These prints were all documented by American Antiquarian Society’s third librarian Clarence Brigham in his seminal publication, Paul Revere’s Engravings, first published in 1958 (AAS also holds Brigham’s research notes for the book project, as well as a set of publisher’s dummies). This text remains the central resource for the study of Revere’s engraved work.

Because of AAS’s strong Revere holdings and the Brigham publication, we often get inquiries from students and picture researchers looking for eighteenth-century images depicting Revere’s April 18, 1775 ride, and they sometimes want the image to be by Revere. But, of course, there isn’t any such visual record. Most images of Revere on horseback galloping through the streets of Boston and its suburbs all date from after 1860, the year that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) wrote his famous poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride.” First printed in the Boston Transcript in December of 1860, the poem was reprinted in the Atlantic Monthly in January 1861, with an added stanza, and later appeared in multiple editions of Longfellow’s compilation Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). When Longfellow constructed the story of Revere in 1860 he was not trying to write a formal history, but rather a patriotic poem. He embellished a bit, heightened the drama, and wrote a darn good poem that was well received by a nation unraveling on the eve of the American Civil War. When people call us looking for images of the events of Paul Revere’s activities in April 1775, we often steer them to an illustrated Longfellow edition.

CHAViC Conference on Historical Prints: Fact & Fiction

Alphabet of Natural History. Hartford: D.W. Kellogg & Co., [ca. 1830-1842]

This fragile accordion-fold format picture book depicts exotic animals, many of which would have been described in African travel narratives that were published in the antebellum era.  The image presented here shows the rhinoceros familiar to modern readers, and the exotic quagga, a zebra-like animal that became extinct in the late nineteenth century.  The Kellogg brothers (Daniel Wright, Edmund Burke, and Elijah Chapman Kellogg) were prolific publishers of high quality lithographed prints and children’s books for nearly four decades.  Purchased from Michael Burstein.  General Library Acquisitions II Fund.

Currier & Ives lithograph of the capture of Atlanta, Georgia by Sherman's army

Next year marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War. Many institutions are planning exhibitions, activities, and publications around the events which tore the United States apart between 1861 and 1865. Some organizations have already contacted AAS regarding the possibility of borrowing or reproducing material from our collections. The uptick in such requests has caused me to think about the vast Civil War holdings that fall under the auspices of the Society’s Graphic Arts department.

As one might expect, the Society has outstanding holdings in this area. No, really, I know I say this all the time, but really – they are outstanding. Our broadsides collection includes roster listings, military announcements, and calls for the return of deserters. Our ephemera collections feature decorated Civil War envelopes,

Civil War envelop from New York depicting a battle scene

menus from military events, and tickets to fund-raising events and Sanitary Fairs. Many of the broadsides and much of the ephemera can be searched in our online catalog and are included in the American Broadsides and Ephemera product. Portraits of military leaders, regimental groups, and depictions of battle actions and home life can be found in the Lithograph and Engravings collections and political cartoons skewering leaders of both the North and the South are part of the cartoon collection. There is even a separate collection of just Civil War cartoons cut out of a variety of newspapers and periodicals that has an online inventory. Maps of the Southern states showing troop placements and outlining military strategies are housed in the Society’s amazing geographic collections.

And then there are the photographs.

General Marsena Patrick and staff, c. 1865, photographed by Gardner, 7th & D Street, Washington, D.C.

The Civil War was really the first war captured by the camera from start to finish. From Generals to privates, the photographers took pictures of everyone. Some, like Mathew Brady, followed the action and introduced the world to the idea of photojournalism with photographs of the aftermath of fighting. The Society’s carte-de-visite collection was recently sorted to place all regimental photographs together so all the men of the Massachusetts 15th (a Worcester County regiment) are now boxed together. Stereographs of battlefields and military groups, as well as tintypes and large albumen prints are scattered across various photographic holdings, some in geographic classifications, others in historical groups. Let’s not forget the sheet music printed in Richmond, the confederate currency, ballads about campaigns and camp life – the list goes on and on.

Yes, some of the Society’s wonderful Graphic Arts holdings will be loaned or reproduced over the next four to five years. As you attend exhibitions or commemorative events, keep an eye out for our standard credit line, “Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society,” on wall labels and in captions. If you yourself are hunting for a Civil War image, you can contact our Rights & Reproduction department. If it was created between 1861 and 1865, chances are pretty darn good that we have it!