Our Song Birds (Chicago, IL). July 1866. George Root was noted as a composer and as one of the largest music publishers in Chicago during the 1860s. This cute little 64-page booklet was written by Root and B.R. Hanby, and published by Root & Cady. It comprises one issue of a juvenile musical quarterly, Our Song ...
On Wednesday, March 14, 2012, the print exhibition With a French Accent, French and American Lithography to 1860 will open at the Davis Museum of Wellesley College. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the collection of the American Antiquarian Society and explores the influence of French expertise and design on American popular lithographic print production ...
Let's turn our gaze for a moment from our work at the AAS to the West Coast, where Brewster Kahle has founded The Internet Archive. Kind of like a modern day Isaiah Thomas, Mr. Kahle had made his fortune, and now wanted to use it, in part, to establish an organization that would seek to preserve ...
On this day 150 years ago, Martha LeBaron Goddard (1829-1888) wrote the letter transcribed below to her friend Mary Ware Allen Johnson. Her letters, composed over the years of the Civil War (of which the AAS has about 30), describe one woman’s response and ways of intersecting with the world (and war) around her. This letter ...
Augustus Chatterton, Esq. World traveler, wit, and author of a late eighteenth-century book of poems, Buds of Beauty; or, Parnassian Sprig. The only problem is that no one knows who the man is. After Chatterton authored the 1787 work, which contains such picks as "The Printer and Plagiarist," "The Segar," and "Epitaph on a Mean Wretch," ...
The History of Little Red Riding Hood. Binghamton, NY: J. & C. Orton, 1840. This is a classic example of a popular folk tale issued by a fairly obscure regional publisher, J. & C. Orton. Active ca. 1840-1841, the firm is represented in the AAS collections by fewer than a handful of imprints, all of them ...
After supper Pap took the jug, and said he had enough whiskey there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. – Huckleberry Finn Delirium Tremens: the strange affliction of “being tormented by devils” (Root 14) while under the influence of alcohol. The Book: The Horrors of Delirium Tremens by James Root; New York: Josiah Adams, 120 Broadway, ...
Harding, Chester, attr. Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838). Oil on canvas, [ca. 1830] Salem navigator and mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch was also the author of several atlases and scientific publications which can be found in the AAS collection. Bowditch is perhaps most famous for his 1802 publication, The New American Practical Navigator, which went through several editions in ...
The Society has received a lot of great press lately. Two weeks ago Worcester Magazine featured AAS as “Worcester’s hidden gem” in an article by Matthew Stepanski and last week AAS member and Telegram and Gazette columnist Al Southwick called the Society “far more than a collection of books and newspapers. The AAS has become ...
About two years ago, I found myself looking at an 1892 Bibliobroadsheet. It advertised the Bronson, Michigan, store of J. Francis Ruggles, the most unusual bibliopole ever working in Bronson, for sure. Michael Winship, professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin and an editor of the recently published five-volume series A History ...
Calathumpian Advocate (Concord, NH). June 19, 1850. This interesting political periodical could be described as rabble rousing. The term “calathumpian” is probably a colloquial Americanism relating to a society of social reformers, especially those that disrupt political events. This particular issue includes a report of the Calathumpian Fusiliers disrupting an election in Concord, ending with a ...
Recently I’ve been going through some newly acquired diaries in our manuscript collection. Randomly reading diary entries can prove to be very entertaining. Sure, you could end up reading page after page of daily weather, or recaps of Sunday sermons, but once in a while you’ll find a gem. Because so many diaries are straightforward ...
The first ever Chairman's Commendation from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was awarded to AAS staff member Philip J. Lampi in a ceremony yesterday afternoon. Local politicians, current and former AAS staff, and some of Lampi's many friends and colleagues gathered to honor his lifetime of research into early American election returns. Learn more by reading: the front ...
Who knew the skill set for a successful curator of newspapers included dumpster diving abilities? While this may not always be literally true, figuratively speaking at least AAS's curator of newspapers has rescued some of the collection's treasures from pretty precarious situations. Vincent Golden recently gave a talk on his "Chasing the Dumpster" activities, which ...
The Boys’ and Girls’ American Annual: A Christmas and New Year’s Present for Young People. New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1861. This utterly charming chromolithographed winter scene of a boy feeding deer is the frontispiece to our newly acquired copy of The Boys’ and Girls’ American Annual. It is unabashedly devoted to leisure reading. The ...
