When AAS was tasked with creating the physical catalog for Radiant with Color & Art to coincide with the opening of the McLoughlin Brothers exhibition at the Grolier Club in 2017, the focus was (at least from the design perspective) on the eponymous color and art. We tried to frontload the design of that catalog ...
The fall edition of the AAS newsletter, the Almanac, is now up on the website and showcases some of the exciting things going on at AAS! Some items featured include the opening of the Paul Revere exhibition at New-York Historical Society last month; a pictorial look at how we are utilizing our new Learning Lab and ...
In past years of the AAS annual report, we have included in the back pages quotes about the institution over its two centuries, a traveling chess game and paper dolls (with pieces to be cut out!), an Instagram hashtag match-up, and in last year’s iteration, a rebus-palooza. This year’s “back fun pages” (as they have been dubbed in-house) serve as a ...
When we were faced with the challenge of designing the catalog for the McLoughlin Brothers exhibition at the Grolier Club in New York in-house, the task seemed a bit overwhelming at first. The collection material featured was already so lively and engaging. But the answer quickly became clear when we began creating a plan for ...
In the AAS Penmanship Collection, a group of penmanship exercises and copy books by various students, there is a poem titled “After Vacation” by an unknown pupil from the Parkerville School in Westford, Massachusetts. The poem is on the first page of one of the mostly-filled volumes and captures an adieu to summer with the ...
When the Rijksmuseum was being renovated over a decade ago, I received a postcard featuring a spirited version of Rembrandt’s oil on canvas, “The Night Watch.” I found the playfulness of the image, an icon for the famous museum in Amsterdam jazzed up with construction equipment, so compelling that I kept it. An article appearing ...
Like many born and bred New Englanders, I have developed a soft spot for Louisa May Alcott’s holiday pieces (1832-1888). Alcott’s literary career, which began with pseudonymously published magazine articles, was followed by beloved books; sprinkled throughout are works seasoned with festive subjects, settings, and themes. Her novels for children (which cue-in these topics) were ...
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 ...
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 ...
I am currently in the throes of infancy with a nine-month-old who, by any evaluation of her current book-handling technique, is not destined to become a rare book librarian. She literally attacks the written word without mercy or proper treatment. Here she is “reading” her copy of Plip-Plop Pond, created by a company called Indestructibles. This ...
In the same vein as last year’s ghostly stereocards blog post, we offer another Halloween treat for you! Have you thought about sending someone a light-fright this October? If you’ve been in any stationary or card aisle recently, you would notice most holidays serve as an excuse to send a greeting. Although conservative in number ...
Riding the wave of our recent James Russell Wiggins lecture’s Franklin-iana and the American Library Association’s 2014 Preservation Week: Pass it On (which takes place April 27-May 4, 2014), we found ourselves struck by the Benjamin Franklin quotation, “An ounce of preservation is worth a pound of cure.” Although Franklin was speaking about fire safety ...
This post will present approximately one hundred years of Irish ballads contained within the Society’s collections. The first is a fascinating 1769 broadside containing a New Year’s address by Ireland native Lawrence Sweeney (-1770), a popular figure in New York City journalism in the 1760s. Sweeney is one of the first identifiable Irish-American voices. He ...
As has been blogged on Past is Present before, AAS has an extensive and representative assortment of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century valentines. Part of the Graphic Arts Collection, these ephemeral pieces of affection were exchanged on or before February 14, as Valentine’s Day provided the perfect opportunity to give that special someone a card. Many were ...
We're wishing a very happy 265th birthday to AAS founder Isaiah Thomas! We compiled this card from Thomas’s own copy of A Specimen of Printing Types by Thomas Cottrell, Letter Founder.
As our gift, we’ve digitized the 1774 London imprint, so you can browse the type specimens and ornaments! You can find it in our digital ...
