Chronicles of New England. Chap. 1000. [United States: s.n., 1826-7?] Two copies of the earlier Chapter 999 have been traced (one of which was already at AAS), but this appears to be the only copy of Chapter 1000. When it appeared at auction this fall, we had to have it. A satire written in Biblical style, ...
I left off last month promising details of how the work of early nineteenth-century American antiquarians has, over the last two centuries, morphed into the work of cataloging, archiving, and collecting, of how the “science” of antiquarianism has become the “science” of information. To address this shift, we might start by looking at how the ...
Cowdin, Elliot. Letterpress Copy Book, 1861-1869. Elliot C. Cowdin (1819-1880) was a well-known merchant in New York. As a young man he was greatly involved with the Mercantile Library Association, where he learned much about his trade. Later in life he became involved in politics, especially during the Civil War. This letterpress copy book contains copies ...
In May I picked up a large collection of newspapers from the Indiana State Library. It took 20 book cart loads to unload the back of the 26’ truck. There were a number of bundles of miscellaneous newspapers of single or scattered issues. While going through one of the bundles, I came across an issue of ...
Benjamin Franklin. New York: J. Dalton, for the New York Albion, ca. 1860. Large format engravings were distributed in several ways in pre-Civil War America. They could be ordered from a publisher by subscription, purchased directly through book and print dealers, or awarded as premiums for membership in an organization, such as the American Art Union. Many ...
Hannibal Journal, and Native American. May 28, 1842. Vol. 1, no. 21. A dealer recently sent me a box with pieces of newspapers. Some of them were either the front or back page, and many of them were just half of one page. Still, I waded through the large mound of fragments to see what was ...
Afternoon Tea: Rhymes for Children. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons; London: Frederick Warne and Co., ca. 1880. This delicate color-printed illustration of children at play is taken from a book of children’s poetry published jointly in New York and London by the England-based houses of Thomas Nelson and Sons and Frederick Warne. Both publishers were ...
Every quarter at AAS we release a list of recent publications by those who have researched at the library as fellows, members, or readers. To see this list, as well as a list of works published from 2000-2014, please visit our recent scholarship page on the AAS website. If your book, article, or other achievement is not included, ...
We've had an interesting lineup of public programs so far this spring, exploring everything from nineteenth-century theater and attitudes towards alcohol to what life was like for free and enslaved African Americans in Massachusetts during the prelude to the Revolutionary War. Tomorrow, Thursday, May 29, at 7:00 p.m., we'll continue our series with a talk by ...
On September 6, 1774, 4,622 militiamen from 37 towns marched into Worcester, shiretown for the county, closed the Royal courts, and forced each court official to resign. Forming two lines, they forced each court official, hat in hand, to disavow the recent Massachusetts Government Act, which revoked the Province’s charter and disenfranchised its citizens. With ...
The Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin. Philadelphia: Davis, Porter & Coates, ca. 1866-1868. This poignantly humorous image of the owl digging departed Cock Robin’s grave is taken from an “indestructible” picture book that had its pages reinforced with cloth for the hard use of young and eager hands. This hand-colored wood engraving is characteristic ...
This image, a favorite around AAS, is part of a series a lithographs that circulated in the late 1820s and early 1830s, depicting people as an amalgamation of various objects: shells, vegetables, paintings, and in this instance, relics. This graphic motif harkens back to the Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose portrait heads made of similar ...
Those of you who follow the Society's blog are aware that the last week in April was Preservation Week, a period set aside by the American Libraries Association to focus on the care and conservation of collections material. We take preservation seriously at AAS. The word is part of our core mission, in fact. We have ...
To continue the celebration of the American Library Association’s 2014 Preservation Week held back in April (and mentioned in an earlier post), we're bringing you a behind-the-scenes peek into a conservation project that started just a couple weeks ago on a recent acquisition – a Bay Psalm Book from 1709. The revitalization process for this ...
It’s an age-old question: What is the way to a woman’s heart? (It’s also a timely question, with Mother’s Day this coming weekend.) We often hear the way to a man’s heart is food, beer, or sports. To a woman’s, it’s usually said that it’s chocolate, jewelry, clothing, or shoes. If we dig a little ...
