Many of us begin a new academic or fiscal year this week. In the spirit of new beginnings and renewed vows of organization, AAS has added an RSS feed to our website. Those who have visited the AAS website recently have no doubt noticed how much content has been added, events promoted, books published, etc. [...]
Last month, the American Antiquarian Society entered a new era. Since 1981, fellows and visiting scholars have been housed at the Goddard-Daniels House, an elegant turn-of-the-century mansion located across Salisbury Street from the library building. On May 25, with Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray leading the proceedings, the ribbon was cut to officially open the Society’s [...]
Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, May 18, at 7:30 p.m. Lori D. Ginzberg will be giving a lecture at AAS on “‘A very radical proposition’: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Meanings of the Vote.” Brilliant, self-righteous, charismatic, intimidating, and charming, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the founding philosopher of the American movement for woman’s rights. To many she [...]
Ever wish you could turn common, everyday household objects into gold? Well, now you can! This pitch may sound eerily similar, if in reverse, to the “Cash for Gold” ads flooding our TV airwaves today. In the early modern world, alchemists were the ones pursuing methods to turn common elements into gold. When Europeans settled [...]
Today you can check out a new issue of Common-place.org, an early American online journal AAS co-sponsors. If you want to understand today’s economic woes, you could do a lot worse than explore hard times in early America. That’s the message in “Hard Times,” the latest edition of Common-place.org, guest edited by historian Michael Zakim. [...]
If you thought the tension and incivility between political parties in America couldn’t get any worse than it has been recently, then you haven’t spent enough time with nineteenth century political cartoons. Today I don’t think you could get away with publishing an image like “The Philosophic Cock” (in the new fully illustrated online inventory [...]
Just a reminder that the best way to escape the dreary weather (besides a tropical vacation) is a relaxing evening with a glass of wine, delicious food, and some good books. If you agree, please join us tonight at the American Antiquarian Society for our annual Adopt-a-Book event beginning at 6pm. You may also attend [...]
Some of the American Antiquarian Society’s collection materials have been on our shelves for almost 200 years, but other items are “new” antiquities. New, that is, in the way that hand-me-downs from your older sister are new. They are new to us even if they have existed for hundreds of years elsewhere. The AAS curators [...]
What do we think about when we think about the history of the book in the U.S. South (for those of us prone to think about such things, that is)? It is received wisdom that the South was much less industrialized than the North in the first half of the nineteenth century. And, if print [...]
It’s a good news / bad news situation. For those of you who were not going to be able to attend Ezra Greenspan’s lecture tonight, the good news is his talk on “Researching and Writing African American Biography: The Life of William Wells Brown” has been postponed to Thursday, April 22. And for those who [...]
Thursday, February 25 – 7:30 p.m. at the American Antiquarian Society
Researching and Writing African American Biography: The Life of William Wells Brown
by Ezra Greenspan
William Wells Brown: A Reader Prof. Greenspan’s illustrated talk combines two stories: a narrative of the life of the most prolific and pioneering African American writer of the nineteenth century, and an account of a biographer’s journey to present that life to a twenty-first-century public.
Happy weekend, everyone! Hope you all have had a chance to crash out on the couch and luxuriate in the do-nothing vibe. Should the time come when you decide to do something more drastic with your weekend, here’s a last-minute but heartfelt invitation to join us at the acclaimed Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair at [...]
This one’s for the history geeks among us (and I include myself in this): You will not want to miss a truly unique historical reenactment taking place tomorrow night Defending John Brown: Henry David Thoreau and Worcester’s Reform Tradition on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. at Mechanics’ Hall, Main Street, Worcester.Witness Henry David [...]
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