Although Ann Taylor’s poem begins with the line, “Who fed me from her gentle breast …,” very few American illustrated editions show a mother actually breastfeeding her child, due to modesty concerns, making this image published in an edition issued by New York publisher Solomon King (1791-1832) a great find.
Typically, curators purchase collection material from dealers, auctions, and bookfairs. Less common is the unsolicited offer from someone who found something in their house. Early this past summer [2024], a woman from West Virginia called AAS – on the recommendation of a dealer she had consulted – about a newspaper she found among other old papers. She provided a nice description of the Anti-Slavery True Witness, which appeared to be unrecorded. No one had a copy. After she sought a third-party appraisal, she offered to sell it to AAS at an agreed price.
(Front page of the February 20, 1850, issue of the Anti-Slavery True Witness. Catalog Record)
The Anti-Slavery True Witness is an abolitionist newspaper from the south-eastern part of Ohio, near Zanesville, where even today the population is under 2,500. It succeeded the Concord Free Press, whose previous proprietor had financial problems and sold it to M. Wilkins at the end of 1849. Wilkins had less luck, and the paper folded in just under a year. This issue contains several articles written exclusively for this paper including a description of a Black school in Fairview, OH, the kidnapping of a formerly enslaved person back to Georgia, and an anti-slavery meeting in West Liberty, OH. AAS serials cataloger Alicia Murphy uncovered information about the paper while creating the catalog record. Acquiring unrecorded titles is a high priority for the newspaper collection. Doing so adds to the rich picture of newspaper history and bibliography and creates access for researchers.
~ Vincent Golden, Curator of Newspapers and Periodicals
In the summer of 2024, I spent eight weeks at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) for my first paper conservation internship as part of my master’s program in conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Under the guidance of Chief Conservator Babette Gehnrich — who has dedicated over 35 years to stewarding this remarkable collection — I had the privilege of engaging in various conservation projects. Through this internship, I came to appreciate how AAS’s vast collection, comprising over four million items, embodies American history not only through its texts and imagery but also through traces of use, repair, and past conservation efforts. In this blog post, I will share my experiences from three major projects I participated in. Continue reading History of Conserving History: The Evolution of Paper Conservation in Libraries
(Image of Sharecropper Account Book [manuscript], 1866-1868. Catalog Record)This account book, kept on an unidentified Georgia plantation in the mid-1860s, features accounts for over fifty Black sharecroppers. Sharecropping families were frequently trapped in a cycle of debt due to laws restricting sale of sharecropped goods on former plantations and unethical practices by southern planters. On this specific Georgia plantation, Black laborers are recorded buying a variety of goods including almanacs, spices, candy, cheese, alcohol, and more. Several workers purchased banjos and strings, fiddle screws, violin strings, and a jaw harp, indicating that music survived in the sharecropping environment. The structure of sharecropping ultimately suppressed the freedom of many freed people.
In my work as the Serials Cataloger at AAS, I recently came across the Ladies’ Enterprise, a periodical printed in several New England cities (including Worcester!) in the 1850’s. I was immediately drawn in by its subtitle “Edited and published by females” and its decorative masthead depicting women working at a print shop. Further digging brought forth more exciting discoveries. The November 1, 1854, issue claimed that it was “edited, published and printed entirely by ladies” and that soon it would have “one hundred females constantly employed as editors, publishers, contributors, canvassers, etc.” I was sold. This catalog record needed more work! Why had I never heard of this women-run periodical from the 1850’s!? A few short Google searches later and I had my answer. Continue reading A Scoundrel at Work in the Archives: George Weeks’ Scams
Pasted into volume 11 of Encyclopaedia; or, A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature (Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1798), this broadside appears to be the only surviving evidence of one of the most unusual private circulating libraries. It demonstrates the cultural importance of one encyclopedia and the lengths people might go to be able to purchase such an expensive item.
An entire society was set up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to circulate just one publication: Dobson’s multi-volume Encyclopaedia.
(Front page of the Constitution of the Portsmouth Encyclopedia Society.)
Published by Thomas Dobson from 1789 to 1798, Dobson’s Encyclopaedia was the first issued in the newly independent United States of America. Largely a reprint of the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (published 1788–97), Dobson’s was a slightly longer work in which a few articles were edited for a patriotic American audience. The original 18 volumes were published between 1792 and 1798, but a 3-volume supplement was published in 1803. Since the broadside refers to the encyclopedia as a 21-volume set, the broadside itself presumably was not printed before 1803.
The Portsmouth Encyclopedia Society’s constitution begins with a statement of purpose: “We whose names are undersigned have formed ourselves into a social society by the name of the Portsmouth Encyclopedia Society, for the purpose of possessing ourselves of one complete set of Dobson’s Edition of the Encyclopedia, consisting of twenty-one volumes.” Each member was entitled to an equal share of Dobson’s Encyclopaedia, which were exchanged during quarterly meetings: the 21 members corresponded with the 21 volumes in the encyclopedia. A committee would examine the books and “assess fines, in an impartial manner, in all cases where blots, torn leaves, or other damages, more than necessary wear shall in their judgment render it proper.” Fines would be issued for damages to the volumes, and a fine of one dollar was to be paid by those who failed to return their volume at the quarterly meeting. The society allowed members to transfer their share via sale to another individual living in Portsmouth. The final article stipulates that a “fair copy of the whole” of these regulations is to be pasted into each of the twelve volumes of Encyclopedia to “prevent all misunderstanding,” and one of these volumes so marked is now at AAS.
~ Elizabeth Pope, Curator of Books and Digital Collections
The early 19th century saw a resurgence in the use of leeches for medical use, especially during the cholera epidemic of the 1830s in Europe and America. Though leeches did prove to have anti-inflammatory effects, they did not cure or mitigate cholera and by mid-century were rarely used in medicine.
(Front of trade card.)
This trade card touts a Miss H.M. Rice. She specialized in the application of leeches within the office of physician Ashel Boyden, whose office at 42 Hancock Street, Boston, was active from about 1836 to after 1840. Unfortunately, we have not yet found further identifying evidence of Miss Rice in Boston, but this card illustrates another important way women contributed to the workforce in the 19th century.
~ Christine Morris, Associate Curator of Graphic Arts and Registrar
In January 2025, staff at the American Antiquarian Society attended a workshop on African American print culture taught by Dr. Derrick Spires, associate professor of English at the University of Delaware (and an AAS member and councilor), generously sponsored by the Nadia Sophie Seiler Family Fund. Dr. Spires shared how Black people used African American newspapers as a communication platform to reconnect with their families and community in the wake of the Civil War. One source caught my eye – a project called Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery.
Launched in 2017, Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery seeks to identify, digitize, transcribe, and publish information-seeking personal advertisements placed in newspapers by formerly enslaved people looking for their loved ones. The project aims to publish 5,000 ads. According to their website at the time of writing, they currently have found 4,790 ads.
Inspired by Dr. Spires’ presentation, I wanted to find out if the formidable newspaper collection at AAS held any advertisements that the Last Seen project had not yet documented. I suspected that our collections could help the project – and my suspicion proved correct! Continue reading Finding Family After Slavery: The Last Seen Project and AAS
Inspired by a performance of scenes from Alice in Wonderland performed in Japan by a cast of English-speaking children in 1890, New York socialite Emily Prime Delafield (1840-1909) wrote her own dramatized version of Alice. It was originally performed at the Waldorf Hotel in March 1897 as a benefit for the Society of Decorative Arts, an organization devoted to artistic training and for the exhibition and sale of artwork created by women.
(Front cover of Alice in Wonderland: A Play. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1898.)
Published by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1898, this book is a high-end production; it was printed at Boston’s Merrymount Press under the leadership of renowned typographer Daniel Berkeley Updike (1860-1941). This evocative wood block cover illustration was designed by Bertram Goodhue (1869-1924); he became a prominent architect who later formed a business partnership with Ralph Adams Cram.
~ Laura Wasowicz, Curator of Children’s Literature
Benjamin Lundy was a prominent abolitionist in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Brought up as a Quaker in what is now West Virginia, he saw the iniquity of slavery. In 1821 he started the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Mount Pleasant, Ohio.
(Front page of the July 1830 issue of The Genius of Universal Emancipation.)
From there the periodical moved several times, being published in Greenville, TN; Baltimore, MD; Washington, DC; and Philadelphia, PA. It ceased publication in 1835 and Lundy took over the editorship of National Enquirer in Philadelphia for a brief period. In 1838 he purchased a farm in northern Illinois and reestablished the Genius of Universal Emancipation but died the next year at age 50. The Genius of Universal Emancipation, an early and influential anti-slavery periodical influenced by Lundy’s Quaker principles, advocated the colonization of former slaves and the slow dissolution of the slave system. William Lloyd Garrison worked on the paper in 1829 while Lundy was away on lecture tours. He advocated a more direct attack on slavery and the slavers of the area. This led to his imprisonment for 6 months. Upon his release Garrison parted with Lundy who resumed control of the publication again.
(Detail of engraving included in The Genius of Universal Emancipation.)
What makes this rare volume even more special is the inclusion of four engraved plates. Illustrated here is the engraving, “United States Slave Trade. 1830,” included with the July 1830 issue. “The Copperplate engraving accompanying this number, was executed by one of our ingenious Baltimore artists, from a design furnished by the editor, and drawn by a young gentleman of this city.” Lundy went on to note that it was prepared expressly for the periodical, at an expense of $30. Copies were available separately, with or without frames.
~ Vincent Golden, Curator of Newspapers and Periodicals
Worcester County sheriff Lewis Evangelidis and his team were looking to rehouse their cache of county jail records during a recent construction project and, thanks to a diligent staff member, reached out to AAS to ask if the Society was interested in acquiring the records.
Six volumes of the Worcester County Jail records.
The records had been otherwise set for destruction, so it was fortunate that AAS was able to step in and accept this set of registers of prisoners, people in solitary confinement, visitors, daily accounts of new prisoners, and medical records from about 1860 to 1900. These records are a great complement to the various county jail and sheriff records that AAS already houses. We are hopeful that more records will come to AAS for our many researchers interested in the history of the carceral state and the community of individuals in Worcester County who rarely make their way into records of other kinds.
Have you ever wanted to catch a ride on the Flying Dutchman? Or wondered what people ate at Faneuil Hall to celebrate the 4th of July? Would you like to attend a nineteenth-century séance? Earn ten cents from your teacher? Or shop for a tombstone?
(Ship card advertising passage on the Flying Dutchman clipper ship. Catalog Record)
You can learn about all those activities (and more) from the collections at the American Antiquarian Society – and now, you can view images of ephemera related to these topics online, for free! With the completion of a recent project, more than 40,000 new images of ephemera were linked to records in the AAS online catalog. Read more about the project below!
Historical material is considered ephemera if it was intended to be discarded after a specific use. This includes objects such as menus, concert programs, broadsides, photographs, and trade cards.
(Ship card advertising passage across the Hudson River. Catalog Record)(Advertisement for Bay City Stone Co. tombstones and headstones. Catalog Record)
When I started in the role of Digital Librarian in June 2024, Vice President for Collections and Curator of Graphic Arts Lauren Hewes knew just the thingfor me to tackle first. A backlog of approximately 43,000 unorganized and unprocessed scans needed to be checked for quality and arranged to match up with the scanned item’s catalog record. These scans were captured in 2005 and 2006 as part of a larger commercial project, and AAS received copies of the scans.
One lesser-known collection at the American Antiquarian Society is a group of broadsides printed on textiles. Broadsides are ephemeral, single-sheet items that are usually printed only on one side. Some topics typical of broadsides include advertisements, official proclamations, theater announcements, and opinions. AAS has approximately 148 textile broadsides that showcase the breadth and type of these objects. The textiles were produced on the same presses that were used for paper printing, and like their paper counterparts, they combined text and decorative elements. These objects were used as keepsakes, souvenirs, or commemorative objects, and some, in theory, could be used as handkerchiefs. The themes include commemorating specific events or people, “persuasive texts” that showcase social or political movements of the time, and instructional textiles that would have been used for teaching tools in reading, spelling, and arithmetic. The commemorative textiles were usually printed on silk, whereas the “persuasive” and instructional textiles were printed on cotton or muslin (Affleck, 2001).
These textiles were created using various transfer methods common in paper printing, including plate printing, letterpress, and lithography. In addition to the content being copied from other printed sources, the decorative elements like the images and borders were also not created specifically for the textile broadside. The same decorative elements are seenin other printed formats like title pages, tail pieces, and on book covers. The tools used to create these decorations were generally made at local type founders, and many of the ornamental borders can be found in catalogues or type specimen books for these foundries (Affleck, 2001).Continue reading Not Everything That is Printed is on Paper: Survey of Textile Broadsides
[Currency conversion table] [graphic] / Engrav’d printed & sold by Natl. Hurd.Amasa Southwick was a Quaker born in Bolton, MA in 1778. By 1809 he was living in Leicester, where he was engaged in the manufacture of cards used in processing cotton and wool fibers. The Amasa Southwick manuscript collection1 at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) mainly consists of business correspondence and financial documents. An example is the slip of paper shown in Figure 1.
Fig. 1. Amasa Southwick’s note in favor of Paulina Southwick dated May 28, 1809.
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 the history of the book in China at the University of Virginia’s Rare Book School, and undertaking pigment identification research at Harvard’s Weissman Preservation Center, Babette and Marissa provided a fantastic opportunity to explore the wealth of the AAS collections and hone my treatment skills in an exceptional lab environment.
Beyond the physical repair of cultural heritage objects, conservation involves the preservation of the intangible values, meanings, and stories embodied by those artifacts. The first step in an effective treatment, then, must be to consider what makes those objects worth preserving. Babette encouraged me to take advantage of AAS’s unique collection of early American printed works and pursue personal research interests in 18th-century decorated papers and book structures. These elements found a happy balance in a short study of one quintessential American publication, The New England Primer. Continue reading ‘To Which is Added’: The History, Structure, and Conservation of New England Primers at the American Antiquarian Society
