Caution Requisite in Marrying. New York: Sold by E.P. Whaites, 1838-1840. This elegantly designed letter sheet features a spectacular border of flowers, foliage and moths surrounding engraved text by the English Bishop Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) expounding on the dangers of marriage (“It is an ill band of affections to tie two hearts together, by a little ...
After two years of working under the generous dome, I will no longer be the ACLS Public Fellow and Digital Humanities Curator at AAS. Instead, I will be the Digital Humanities Curator, a full-time staff member. My work will not change much, but this transition from fellow to staffer offers a chance for me to ...
When preparing an exhibit for our recent Digital Antiquarian conference we included items related to the famous interaction of two writers at different points in their public careers: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. (This was prompted by the participation of the Whitman Project in our digital projects showcase.) Whitman used Emerson’s private correspondence to promote ...
My Lady's Casket of Jewels and Flowers for Her Adorning. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1885. This book was made for gift-giving, and we at AAS were thrilled to have received such a stunning color plate book as a gift ourselves – along with many similarly gorgeous volumes – from Joanne Gill. An excellent example of the ...
This issue of the Subterranean (“Independent in everything, Neutral in nothing”), dated August 26, 1843, was acquired by AAS circa 2001 as part of a generous donation of Racy newspapers from Leo Hershkowitz. Published in New York City and reaching their peak in the 1840s, the contents of these papers are full of colorful stories ...
Libraries like the American Antiquarian Society exist not just to preserve material, but also to help people find it. Detailed descriptions of items in our catalog records and thoughtfully designed systems of organization ensure that items in our collection can be located. But AAS also relies to a great extent on institutional memory—the knowledge of ...
Province of Massachusetts-Bay. By the Governor. A Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue… Boston: Margaret Draper, July 23, 1774. This important broadside was printed in Boston by Margaret Draper, a loyalist printer who enjoyed the support of Province of Massachusetts Royal Governor Thomas Gage. Gage had been appointed by King George in the spring ...
Asylum Journal (Brattleboro, VT) November 22, 1842 Published every Tuesday, By the inmates of the Vermont Asylum. The Asylum Journal was published at the Vermont Asylum for the Insane, a private institution founded in 1834 by Anna Hunt Marshall. It used a humane form of treatment on its patients, based on the theories of William Tuke ...
Curtis House Inn (South Woodbury, Connecticut). Daybook, 1814-1815. The Curtis House Inn, in the prosperous town of South Woodbury, Connecticut, was built in 1735 by Anthony Stoddard, and is still in operation today. The business changed ownership within the family many times, and was sold outside of the family in 1799. When this daybook was recorded ...
As the United States is gearing up to celebrate its independence for the 239th time, here in the Outreach Department at AAS we’re also gearing up for another kind of event, taking place for the first time: hosting an NEH Institute for K-12 Teachers. Among the many sessions in this institute, titled The News Media and ...
L. Decker’s Circular to All Who Play at Billiards, with Incidental Advice to Purchasers of Billiard Tables… Embellished with Beautifully Engraved Diagrams. New York: L. Decker, 1859. An early unrecorded billiards catalog published by Levi Decker was just one gem in a stack of 45 pamphlets given by AAS member Kenneth Carpenter and his wife Mary. ...
Policy changes frequently will fall under the un-glamorous category. But we are hoping that our newest one will fall under the hooray-for-AAS tally marking. When books have included images from our collection, we’ve been providing photographic reproductions and permission to use them in the form of a licensing agreement; I’ve signed a few (read: thousand) of ...
This past April, AAS received a plain brown envelope via U.S. Mail, with no return address. The envelope was carefully opened by our Acquisitions staff and two folded broadsides were found inside. There was no note included, no inscriptions or marks on the broadsides, and, as luck would have it, there was not even a ...
It is hard to believe that after a year of preparations the Digital Antiquarian Conference and Workshop are now behind us. What began as a twinkle in my and Thomas Augst’s eyes when he was an NEH fellow here blossomed into a 10-day extravaganza here at AAS, starting with the largest academic conference the Society ...
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, just ...
