Keeler Tavern (Ridgefield, Connecticut) , Daybook, 1807-1808. The Keeler Tavern was built as a residence by Benjamin Hoyt in 1713, and was converted into an inn and tavern by Hoyt’s grandson, Timothy Keeler, in 1772. The Tavern itself has a very interesting history, having been fired upon by the British during the Revolution when they learned ...
When I started working at AAS nine years ago, I did not know much about American prints and printmaking. Lithography and engraving were never the focus of my art history classes. And I only knew Currier & Ives from the prints my mother had hanging in every room in the house, and they were not ...
AAS staff and fellows recently got a remarkable lesson in printmaking by Annie Bissett, who was in residence as a Jay and Deborah Last Creative Artist Fellow. Annie led a fellow’s talk one evening after the library closed, during which she shared some of her previous works and then conducted a demonstration in printmaking. She ...
A few months ago we posted an image on Instagram and Facebook that, while fun, we had no particular expectations for. It was a quite a surprise, then, when it garnered a massive amount of attention on both platforms. To this day it remains one of our most widely circulated posts on Facebook. The image was a ...
This post was co-written by AAS Digital Humanities Curator/ACLS Fellow Molly O'Hagan Hardy and AAS Head of Cataloging Alan Degutis. The New York Times recently reported the “discover[y]” of the earliest known use of the term “African American” from almost fifty years earlier than previously thought. The Oxford English Dictionary attributed it to The Liberator in ...
This past winter, while hunting in the stacks for a trade card for a reader, I spotted this intriguing advertisement for chewing gum. As editor of the Society’s Instagram account, I had been participating in an event called #bugginout, which featured posts by libraries around the world focused on illustrations of anthropomorphic insects. These posts ...
Candace Ruby is a senior history major at Assumption College and currently interns in the AAS Readers' Services Department. “Were we to select the dearest and most responsible of all relations in this fallen world, it would be that of a mother.” –The Mother’s Manual, : Containing Practical Hints, by a Mother As Mother’s Day approaches, it ...
Richard and Claudia Bushman are the AAS Distinguished Scholars in Residence for the 2014-2015 academic year. Richard is Gouverneur Morris professor emeritus of history at Columbia University and the recipient of many honors, including the Bancroft Prize. His new book, which he plans to finish while at AAS, is on American farming in the eighteenth century. Claudia ...
We are in the final days of the online portion of the Adopt-a-Book fundraiser before the night-of event on May 5. To encourage participation in the event, we’ve added a few more items to our online catalog. They highlight some vice up for adoption, as well as items in French, German, and Latin (oh my)! From ...
Although we’re not often thought of as a legal repository, we do have a few famous firsts to claim in the realm of legal research. In our manuscript collection lives the notebook of Thomas Lechford, 1638-1641, the first lawyer in Boston. AAS was also the first government documents repository. In 1814, in an effort to ...
In his 1913 “Report of the Librarian” published in the AAS Proceedings, Clarence Brigham concludes with an account of “one of the most valuable gifts ever received by the Society.” It was a collection of some 300 pieces of Staffordshire with American scenes. “It is particularly appropriate,” noted Brigham, “that the Society, which already possesses ...
Patriots' Day offers us a chance to reflect on heroism, on sacrifices large and small, those historic and contemporary, and those made by Revolutionary soldiers and those by star football players. I am of course thinking of our own New England Patriots. One of their former stars showed kindness and concern for me in a ...
Although many think of public libraries when they hear National Library Week, we couldn’t resist celebrating our special collections library as well! Through social media we’ve made sure there have been plenty of pictures of old books and #shelfies, as usual, and our annual Adopt-a-Book event, which raises money for acquisitions, also launched this week. ...
This year the American Antiquarian Society will be holding its 8th annual Adopt-a-Book event on Tuesday, May 5, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. This fundraising event supports the library’s continued acquisitions of historic material and has been very successful in the past, with over $100,000 raised to date. The funds help curators buy more books, pamphlets, ...
“Hurrah! Hurrah! ‘Sound the loud Timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea’ – Early this morning our ears were greeted with the sound of bells ringing a joyous peal - & a paper sent home by Frank announced the glad tidings that Gen. Lee had surrendered with his whole Army to Gen. Grant!” Only a day after ...
