The Acquisitions Table: The Bookbinders Shop

The Bookbinders Shop. Philadelphia: P.S. Duval for the American Sunday School Union, ca. 1850. This image of the interior of the British bookbinding establishment of Westleys & Clark was issued by the Philadelphia lithographer P.S. Duval sometime between 1842 and 1850. A second, related print showing a ship and its furniture was printed by Duval using the same bordered ...

Adopt-a-Book 2014

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This year the American Antiquarian Society will be holding its 7th annual Adopt-a-Book event on Tuesday, May 6th, from 6:00 to 8:00pm.  This event has been an entertaining and successful fundraiser for the library’s continued acquisitions of historic material. The money raised helps curators buy more books, pamphlets, prints, newspapers, and manuscripts.  On May 6th, participants ...

Global Encounters in Worcester

The AAS staff and the Holy Cross students, faculty, and staff involved in the exhibition.

We know how to keep busy in the dead of winter here at the American Antiquarian Society.  In late 2012 Patricia Johnston, the Professor Rev. J. Gerard Mears, S.J. chair in fine arts at the College of the Holy Cross, approached AAS with the idea of having one of her Holy Cross classes research and ...

The Acquisitions Table: Costume Plates from Norway

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Bufford, J.H. Vinter dragt [i.e. drakt] fra Karasjok i Finmarken and Dragter [i.e. Drakter] fra Hitterdal i Tellemarken. Costume plates from Norway Illustrated. New York: Arthur Gilbert & Co., 1872. AAS holds an uneven medley of the pieces that made up an ambitious 1872 printing called Norway Illustrated. The set was to be issued by New ...

The Acquisitions Table: American Fortune Telling Cards

American Fortune Telling Cards, with Directions. New York and Philadelphia: Turner & Fisher, after 1835. 36 cards with box. AAS has several sets of fortune telling cards in its Toys and Games collection. This set features typical four-suit cards suggesting travel, wealth, poverty, love, etc., but is distinctive because many of the images feature American eagles, ...

Instagram Redux

The Society's Graphic Arts collection is a wonderful place for browsing, looking for visual evidence of whatever topic you may be working on.  I have helped researchers hunt in the collection on such broad topics as death, food production, and dress, and as specific as orphaned children, methods of doing laundry, and book shop interiors. As ...

The Acquisitions Table: Norwich Fire Insurance Co.

Norwich Fire Insurance Co. New York: Hatch & Co., 1863-1865. This color lithograph for a Connecticut insurance company features a city view surrounded by international flags and the names of local directors with interests in the firm. The sheet was printed by Hatch & Co. in New York, who advertised that they could produce: "Portraits landscapes, ...

Get the perfect gift for the antiquarian in your life, and help AAS and the world!

Give a Gift to World

This November AAS experimented with a new year-end fundraiser.  We called it "Give a Gift to AAS Give a Gift to the World."  Thirty objects were selected from across the entire spectrum of the Society's collections with several criteria in mind.  Items had to be significant sources of research, fragile or rare, and under about ...

On the Road for AAS

The Los Angeles skyline at dawn during a recent AAS business trip.

A lot of the Society's staff travels for work.  We are a national organization and we collect material from all across the fifty states and Canada.  Curators travel to conferences and to visit collectors,  catalogers move about for training and to stay up to date with the latest methods, managers visit members, foundations, granting agencies, ...

Chromolithography at AAS – Now Including after 1876!

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As many researchers already know, life stops in 1876 for many parts of the American Antiquarian Society’s collections which are limited to the pre-Centennial era.  Recently, however, the Society has amended its collection policies to permit the curator of graphic arts to add prints produced between 1876 and 1900 to the Society’s holdings in order ...

The Acquisitions Table: Calico Dress Ball!

Calico Dress Ball! There Will be a Social Dance at Lyceum Hall, West Acton. Boston: Searle Printing, 1870. This large (42” x 28 ½”) broadside was one of a group of five sheets purchased together, all of which relate to activities in Acton and West Acton, Massachusetts, between 1865 and 1875. Printed in Boston by F.A. ...

Give a Gift to AAS Give a (digitized) Gift to World!

Council for New England Records, "The booke of Orders," 1622-1623.

At most non-profits, November and December are year-end fundraiser months. You are probably getting a lot of solicitation letters in your mail box, along with those stacks of glossy holiday catalogs.  AAS has several important initiatives underway, including donations to our Annual Fund.  This year, however, we are also trying something new. The Society’s curators have selected thirty objects ...

The Pay Off for a Curator’s Perseverance

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Last week, curator of children's literature Laura Wasowicz posted about finding a unique find in a dusty house. This week, curator of graphic arts Lauren Hewes talks about another tack curators more often have to take: "hard work and diligence." Recently, the Society’s curatorial staff was asked to blog about significant acquisitions and the process by ...

The Acquisitions Table: Concert of Sacred Music

F.D. Allen, Concert of Sacred Music, in the Third Associate Reformed Church . . . New York: E. Conrad, 1819. This broadside for a concert given in the spring of 1819 was not identified by Shaw & Shoemaker in their bibliography of American imprints from before 1820, making it an exciting acquisition for AAS. The broadside, ...