The Acquisitions Table: The Life of George Washington the Soldier

Regnier, Auguste (after a painting by Junius Brutus Stearns). The life of George Washington the soldier. New York & Paris: Goupil & Co., 1854. Printed by Lemercier, Paris. This print is one of four in a set depicting the life George Washington—the other prints include renditions of Washington as a citizen, a farmer, and a Christian. ...

The Acquisitions Table: No Rose Without a Thorn

No rose without a thorn. New York: Nathaniel Currier, [1838-1856] Shown with "My Master's Wife" When he started his business on Nassau Street in New York City, Nathaniel Currier offered for sale lithographs of news events, historic images, local views, and pretty women. He also occasionally produced narrative genre scenes such as this curious depiction of ...

The Acquisitions Table: Game of Pictures from the Civil War

Pictures from the Civil War in North America - Bilder aus dem Bugerkriege in Nordamerica - Des tableaux de la guerre-civile en Amerique du Nord.  Nuremberg: G.W. Faber, [c. 1864] Puzzle blocks in box, with six hand-colored lithographs showing the solutions. This German game was produced for the European and American markets and includes six small ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 8: Honor AND Adopt!

Today we conclude our second week of a series of posts that we hope will get you even more excited about the Society’s Adopt-a-Book event to be held at 6PM this coming Tuesday, March 29, 2011 in Antiquarian Hall. When we began this fund-raising effort a few years ago, we noticed that our adopters often would ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 7: Newspapers & Periodicals

Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall. You can read the entire Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. The Society’s ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 5: The Green Family needs your Help!

Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall.  You can read the entire  Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. Our fifth featured ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 4: Song and Dance Man

Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall.  You can read the entire  Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. Our fourth ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 3: An Epistolary Children’s Book

Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall.  You can read the entire  Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 2: Manifest Destiny on a Hankie

Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall.  You can read the entire  Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. Our second ...

Adopt-a-Book 2011, Part 1: The Really Big Tea Party in Boston

Today we begin a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall.  You can read the entire  Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. Our first orphan destined for the ...

Save the Date! Come Adopt!

On Tuesday evening, March 29, 2011, at 6pm, the American Antiquarian Society will hold its fourth annual Adopt-A-Book event in Worcester. At this event you will see recently acquired books, pamphlets, newspapers, prints and ephemera that have been added to the collection by the Society’s curators over the past year.  You can also enjoy drinks ...

Fraud Week, Part 5: “The Limbo of Doubtful Pictures”

Fraud Week on Past is Present concludes today on an appropriately ambiguous note with examples from AAS's graphic arts collections, most of which are not true forgeries but rather what might be called wishful attributions. These works of art hover perpetually in "the limbo of doubtful pictures," to quote an earlier AAS librarian. ...

“The Truth of Sunlight:” When the Daguerreotype was the Technological Vanguard

Woodward Daguerreotype

When a new technology comes along, like the iPad or the Kindle, human consumers are naturally fascinated. We admire our colleague’s new-found technological abilities; we test the gadgets in the stores; we read about them in the press.  Some among us predict the end of older technologies.  Others scoff and stick with the tried and ...

The Acquistions Table: Handbill featuring illustration by David Claypool Johnston

Lilly, Wait, Colman & Holden Printers, Publishers, Booksellers & Stationers. Handbill with illustration by David Claypool Johnston. Boston: Pendleton, 1833. This small handbill advertising a new shop for a Boston book publisher arrived as part of a generous gift of David Claypool Johnston material from AAS member David Tatham. After checking the Society’s Johnston family archive, ...