Exploring Manumissions in the AAS Collections: A Summer Page’s Experience

Recently, I had the privilege of making a display that is now exhibited in the American Antiquarian Society reading room, as you enter through the main glass doors of Antiquarian Hall. My exhibit focuses on manumissions in 1800s America. Originally, I planned to highlight the freedom suit as a legal means of resistance to slavery. ...

New to AAS: William B. Sprague. The Tribute of a Mourning Husband, 1821.

Has bound with it: Alfred Ely, A Sermon, Occasioned by the Late Death of Mrs. Charlotte Sprague (Hartford, 1821) and Absalom Peters, Memoir of Mrs. Charlotte E. Sprague (New Haven, 1821). Although the original leather and gilt binding has been worn down by much handling over the years, this bespoke volume provides a physical tribute to ...

New to AAS: Bi-Metallic Mining Company album. Granite, Montana, between 1887 and 1893. Photograph album with 101 photographic prints.

Now a ghost town, Granite, Montana, was once  a thriving mining town after the discovery of  silver in the 1870s. The Bi-Metallic Mining Company operated there from 1887 until 1893, when the Sherman Silver Purchase Act made the price of silver so low that the mines were abandoned. This album contains numerous photographs including cyanotypes, Kodak ...