In case you have not seen it yet in its printed form, we are very pleased to have posted our 2012 Annual Report online. Last year was full of celebrations and events to do with our Bicentennial, but that in no way marginalized the full year we had of fellowships, conferences, public programs, book publications, [...]
Whenever you create a movie you always shoot more footage than you can actually use. When we created our new orientation film describing the Society as part of our bicentennial celebrations last year, we decided to put the extra footage we had created to good use by creating five short video modules and embedding them [...]
The AAS’s bicentennial gala—a black-tie affair held in the Society’s reading room, complete with a dance floor where scholars usually sit and an Isaiah Thomas made out of marzipan—has come and gone. But well-dressed enthusiasts of America’s printed legacy still want to know: What is the appropriate sartorial observance of the Society’s bicentennial? While our [...]
Some of us on the AAS staff are still recuperating from October’s bicentennial celebrations. There were three days of events, beginning with the Baron lecture by Patricia Nelson Limerick on Thursday night. On Friday morning the curators presented a celebration of bicentennial gifts, followed by lunch across the street at the Goddard Daniels House. On [...]
Each year at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, AAS has a booth on Cultural Row (booths given to local libraries to promote themselves). When regular visitors to the fair walk by our booth, they usually think one thing. Chocolate! Early on we had a dish with small candy bars or other chocolate confectionery delights [...]
As a description of a professional trajectory in the research library world, it certainly makes for an impressive resume: Library Assistant, American Antiquarian Society Curator of Maps and Prints, American Antiquarian Society Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts, American Antiquarian Society Director, Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society At the same [...]
The 200th annual meeting provided the opportunity to celebrate many accomplishments and transitions, but among the most poignant were the retirements of three long-time colleagues: Gigi Barnhill and Caroline Sloat (who retired this summer) and John Keenum (who will retire at the end of the year). A blog post about Gigi’s retirement will appear in [...]
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 [...]
A familiar voice begins, “…two years ago, it was a great honor to be elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society,” as President Bill Clinton sends his bicentennial congratulations via video. The Society has elected fourteen U.S. Presidents to membership, beginning with John Adams in 1813. Given the demands on a President’s – and [...]
Patricia Nelson Limerick, A Western American historian at the University of Colorado, will deliver the ninth annual Baron Lecture on October 25 at 7 p.m. This lecture is named after Robert C. Baron, past AAS chairman and president of Fulcrum Publishing in Denver. This lecture invites a distinguished AAS member who has written a seminal [...]
This just in for people looking for something to do in Worcester this Saturday…The Antiquarian Society is teaming up with the other venerable Worcester institution to be celebrating its bicentennial in 2012. That’s right, on Saturday, October 20th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the First Baptist Church of Worcester and the AAS will collaborate [...]
The American Antiquarian Society is somewhat of a rare bird in the way we exhibit our holdings. On the one hand, the fact that we have virtually no display space means that materials are lent for other institutions to display; on the other hand, we’re just itching to show off our collections. So when the [...]
It is probably not news to readers of this blog that The New York Times recently, and favorably, reviewed the American Antiquarian Society’s Grolier Club exhibition “In Pursuit of a Vision.” But readers familiar with the two societies neither will be surprised that the AAS has exhibited at the Grolier Club in the past (in [...]
Everyone connected closely with AAS knows our old orientation film, produced in 1987 for the 175th anniversary celebration and hosted and narrated by Walter Cronkite. (If you haven’t seen it, it’s still available on our website.) Although this film has served us well over the years, we believe that it’s time the Society shows how [...]
We are pleased to announce the start of our signature bicentennial Fall Public Programs! The programs this fall include an impressive array of scholars and artists who will share new perspectives on key moments and fascinating people in American history. We will be kicking off the series on September 28 at 7 p.m., when Vincent [...]
As many of you may already know, the story of the American Antiquarian Society is in many ways linked to the War of 1812. For if the war had not been underway when Isaiah Thomas decided to found the Society, we could very well have ended up in Boston rather than here in Worcester. As [...]
Although we’re often holding newsworthy events, conferences, and lectures, the bicentennial has brought even more media attention than usual to AAS and its offerings. Just yesterday, the Society was prominently featured in a front page story on the Constitution in Worcester’s Telegram and Gazette. You can read the article here: The source of it all [...]
Each year, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) honors a person or an organization with the Isaiah Thomas Award in Publishing in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the industry. This year’s award honors AAS, in honor of the 200th anniversary of our founding by none other than Isaiah Thomas himself. The award ceremony will [...]
After Antiquarian Hall’s signature copper dome was renovated this summer, five bicentennial banners were installed on the Park Avenue and Salisbury Street facades. Custom-designed hardware will allow the banners to be changed in the future. Four of the banners are on the library stacks, brick walls without windows that provide an excellent backdrop. Each features [...]
Special exhibition to mark the Society’s bicentennial, at the Grolier Club, New York, September 12 through November 17, 2012. As most readers of this blog already know, the American Antiquarian Society was founded two hundred years ago, in 1812 in Worcester, Massachusetts, by the patriot, printer and publisher Isaiah Thomas. In fact, Thomas’s personal library [...]
Schoolmarm, 1870
