Benjamin T. Hill Goes to the Fair

I recently scanned a few boxes of glass negatives from the collection, all made by one Benjamin T. Hill, an amateur photographer and local historian elected to the Antiquarian Society in 1901 who also served as an auditor for the Society for twenty-three years. These negatives were all made at a fair in Worcester in ...

The Acquisitions Table: The Flower People

Mann, Mary Peabody.  The Flower People. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1875. First published in the early 1840’s, Mary Peabody Mann’s The Flower People introduced the study of botany to children under the guise of conversations between a girl named Mary and various plants.  In this case, Mary is speaking to a leaf that she ...

With a French Accent goes to Bordeaux, France!

This fall, the American Antiquarian Society, with the generous support of the Terra Foundation, is sending an important exhibition of American lithographs to the Musée Goupil in Bordeaux, France.  The exhibition, À la mode francaise: La lithographie aux États-Unis 1820 to 1860, will be opening on September 6 and closing on November 10, 2013. The ...

The Acquisitions Table: Moses Kimball’s Journal

Kimball, Moses. Journal, 1850-1851. Moses Kimball (1809-1895) was an active citizen of Boston throughout the 19th century.  After failed attempts at the newspaper and printing business, Kimball succeeded in the museum business, purchasing and expanding the New England Museum (which had been established by Ethan Allen Greenwood) in 1838, and opening the Boston Museum in ...

Samuel Langdon, Summer Jobs, and My Experience at the AAS

Dan Boudreau is a summer page at AAS and a rising senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), located directly across the street from AAS. A few months ago we had posted about the work of two WPI students with the “A New Nation Votes” project. In this current post, Dan, one of those two students, ...

The Acquisitions Table: Cornered!

Schultz, Christian, after Richard Caton Woodville. Cornered! [Waiting for a Stage].Lemercier lithographer. New York & Paris: Goupil& Co., 1851. With the exhibition and publication of With a French Accent: American Lithography to 1860, (Davis Art Center, Wellesley College 2012 and MuséeGoupil, Bordeaux, France 2013) the American Antiquarian Society has become a resource for the study ...

A Letter from Thomas Jefferson on the Plight of Native Americans

Camille Dupuis is a summer page at AAS and a rising senior at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. In this post she shares how her time at AAS and her interaction with programs and fellows has piqued her research interests. At AAS there are thousands of different materials at your disposal ...

The Acquisitions Table: The History of a Great Many Little Boys and Girls

Kilner, Dorothy.  The History of a Great Many Little Boys and Girls.Keene, N.H.: John Prentiss, 1807. English author Dorothy Kilner (1755-1836) targeted these stories specifically to young readers between the ages of four and five.  Although her audience is young, Kilner’s subjects are very serious: one young boy who refuses to wear clothes is beaten ...

K-12 Workshop: Learning about “Writing History” with an Expert

Why not jumpstart your school year by joining us for a workshop? On Monday, August 19, we’ll be hosting “Writing History,” a workshop for K-12 educators led by Bancroft Prize-winning author John Demos. Through a lecture/discussion with Demos and a series of interactive workshops we will be exploring the process of creating and writing historical narratives, ...