‘To Which is Added’: The History, Structure, and Conservation of New England Primers at the American Antiquarian Society

In the summer of 2023, while completing my MA in book conservation at West Dean College in Chichester, England, I undertook a 10-week internship at the American Antiquarian Society, working alongside Chief Conservator Babette Gehnrich and Library and Archives Conservator Marissa Maynard. In between my time spent writing a thesis, attending a week-long course on ...

Fall 2021 Virtual Book Talk Schedule

We are pleased to announce the Fall 2021 schedule for the Virtual Book Talks series. Our lineup includes a variety of topics including astronomy and printing the universe, nineteenth-century printing in Mexico, African American literary practice, and the politics of Native American writing. We ended our summer with Elizabeth Kimball, Assistant Professor of English at Drexel ...

The Acquisitions Table: An Unidentified Printing Office by Photographer C.P. Michael

The Society’s collection of photographs of working print shops continues to expand (see blog posts on this topic from 2014 and 2017). Most of the photographs feature businesses in New England, New York, or Pennsylvania. This newly acquired photo, showing a tidy shop with a ca. 1882 Hoe flatbed newspaper press, was taken in Nebraska. ...

PHBAC Virtual Book Talks Fall 2020 Schedule

In May 2020, the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture (PHBAC) launched its Virtual Book Talks series. This new academic program showcases authors of recently published scholarly monographs, digital-equivalents, and creative works broadly related to book history and print culture. Each installment includes a presentation from the author and a Q&A ...

Say Cheese! Photographs of Printers at Work, Redux

Back in 2014, I prepared a post for Past is Present that featured four photographs of newspaper print shops, two from the collection and two recently acquired. In the three years since that post, AAS has added several more occupational images featuring print shops of all shapes and sizes. These images add to our knowledge of the ...

The Acquisitions Table: Steel Printing Plate for “Echoes of the Woods”

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Nicolas Valstin, engraver. Echoes of the Woods and Shepherdess and the Birds. Saint Louis: Kunkel Brothers, ca. 1871-1878. This steel printing plate was used to create sheet music covers. The two tunes that would have been found inside this cover were both popular in the United States until about 1900. Both were reissued multiple times by the publishing ...

John Hancock performs his patriotic duty by…acquiring paper?

The press Isaiah smuggled out of Boston, known as Old No. 1.

There’s no shortage of celebrations here in Massachusetts for today’s holiday, even if it is a holiday that almost nobody from any other state (with the exception of Maine and Wisconsin) has ever heard of. But for a native of Massachusetts who likes history, Patriots’ Day is about as good as it gets. After all, ...

Marbled Madness!

Washington Irving, 1783-1859. Life of George Washington. New York: G.P. Putnam, 1859. This multivolume set has colorful marbled edges done with a wide-comb pattern.

Over the last couple years, the “MarbledMonday” hashtag has taken off on the AAS Instagram feed, becoming one of our most popular regular features (competing with other favorites like “Caturday” and “Frankenbooks”). Every Monday, we show off a striking example of what are the most colorful features on historical book bindings: their marbled papers, edges, ...

New Online Exhibition: From English to Algonquian: Early New England Translations

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In addition to paging and returning collections materials, managing the desk schedule and the reference and reception staff, answering reference questions and compiling daily circulation statistics, my typical day as head of readers’ services usually involves meeting one or more researchers who are excited to arrive at Antiquarian Hall for the very first time. After ...

Combining History, Graphic Art, and Modern America in the Classroom

This broadside was one of the items the students viewed during their visit to AAS. "Now completed and for sale! An impartial and correct history of the vigilantes of Montana Territory!" Virginia City, Mont.: D.W. Tilton & Co., 1866.

Recent researchers and other visitors to the American Antiquarian Society have had an opportunity to view a special exhibit: “From Frederick Douglass to Ferguson: Graphic Design Projects on Race in Modern America Inspired by the Collections of the American Antiquarian Society.” This is the story of the origins of that exhibit as the result of ...

Isaiah Thomas Comes to AAS—In Miniature

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With support from the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati we were able to bring our popular Isaiah Thomas-Patriot Printer program to communities in northern Worcester County. After one such performance at the Leominster Public Library, Donald Hicks came up to me and we chatted about Isaiah Thomas’s involvement with the Masonic order. Mr. Hicks, a ...

An Unusual Advertisement

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The Philadelphian  (Philadelphia, PA).  February 1846. This is a scarce monthly publication filled with stories, tidbits of information, and small jokes for the entertainment and amusement of the reader. What makes this particular issue interesting is an advertisement on page 2 that takes up almost two-thirds of the page.  It is for drugs, medicines, chemicals, paints, oils, ...

Happy Birthday, Isaiah!

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We're wishing a very happy 265th birthday to AAS founder Isaiah Thomas! We compiled this card from Thomas’s own copy of A Specimen of Printing Types by Thomas Cottrell, Letter Founder. As our gift, we’ve digitized the 1774 London imprint, so you can browse the type specimens and ornaments! You can find it in our digital ...

But does it play in Pareoi?

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Peoria Daily Transcript (IL) Sept. 27, 1858.  June 9, 1859. Those who research the history of printing love mistakes.  It is the little “oops” that give us clues into the methods of production.  A piece of type might work loose and fall on top of the bed and get printed that way, showing us the shape of ...

When lightning hits a printing warehouse…in 1799

On the evening of June 26, 1799, a major summer thunderstorm passed through Worcester.  One result was that a warehouse that Isaiah Thomas used to store printing materials was struck by lightning, causing damage.  Of course something like that was newsworthy and a detailed report appeared in the next issue of Thomas’s paper, the Massachusetts ...