Portrait of T. P. and D. C. Collins. Daguerreotype, Philadelphia, 1846. With T. P. Collins. Unidentified Girl Holding a Book. Daguerreotype, Philadelphia, 1846. This daguerreotype of brothers Thomas P. and David C. Collins lounging on a sofa was generously donated to AAS this spring by scholar Rebecca Norris. The donation was accompanied by the opportunity to ...
!["The Improved and Illustrated Game of Dr. Busby." Salem, Mass.: Published by W. and S. B. Ives., [1843?].](http://pastispresent.org/wp-content/uploads/Dr.-Busby.jpg)
This past summer we completed work to make the Society’s collection of over four hundred games more accessible to our readers and the scholarly community. Christine Graham Ward, the Society’s Visual Materials Cataloger, created detailed records for each game in our General Catalog. These records include a brief description of each game, a tally of ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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, ...
The Old Violin. Chromolithographic proof. Covington, Kentucky: Donaldson Art Sign Co., 1887. The Society has been working to build the portion of the print collection which focuses on the dissemination of fine art in the United States, adding engravings and lithographs after famous or popular American paintings. The prints were then sold to the emerging middle class ...
B.F. Smith Jr. after J. W. Hill. Philadelphia from Girard College - 1850. New York: Smith Brothers & Co., ca. 1850. The American Antiquarian Society holds a substantial manuscript archive for the Smith Brothers, a publishing firm located in Maine and New York. Four brothers formed the firm, which specialized in the printing of folio lithographed ...
Box with Nine Congress Quill Pens. New York: Emanuel De Young, ca. 1850. This box of goose quill pens was purchased jointly by the manuscript curator, who wanted to add the pens to our holdings of writing implements, and the graphic arts curator, who wanted the box and label for the ephemera collection. De Young produced ...
This week, AAS was fortunate to receive a hand-made, circa 1830, valentine as a donation. Society member George K. Fox of California presented the valentine to AAS President Ellen Dunlap at an event at the San Francisco Book Club celebrating the Society’s receipt of the National Humanities Medal. The Society has a large and representative collection ...
I was working at the reference desk recently, when our sharp-eyed library assistant Daniel Boudreau brought to my attention a volume that had crossed the desk the previous day. A scholar researching the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley had requested the item, which was a fully illustrated book made with lithographic images and text. Dan ...
Starting in 1880, the chromolithographer Louis Prang held an annual design contest for the selection of his color-printed Christmas cards. Prang, who is often called “The Father of the American Christmas Card,” helped to popularize the practice of sending cards in the United States after he made an 1864 visit to Europe. While there he ...
The American Antiquarian Society has an extensive collection of pre-1800 American bookplates, with representative examples engraved by famous patriots like Paul Revere, or commissioned by founding fathers such as George Washington (left). AAS founder, Isaiah Thomas, had two different bookplates made by Revere and AAS, of course, has several examples of each ( below). These ...
Recently, AAS purchased two photographs depicting American newspaper printers, one on eBay and the other at a local auction in central Massachusetts. These images capture working men posed in photographic studios, holding props and tools of the trade. When viewed with two additional photographs already in the collection, these portraits capture the likenesses of people ...
