Descriptions of new-to-AAS items recently acquired
Here is a fun anecdote from Graphic Arts curator Lauren Hewes that highlights both the value of AAS's online illustrated inventories and how our online resources can help to put new items on The Acquisitions Table: One day this past year a dentist in Alabama was on Google searching for more information about a pastel he ...
Tuckerman, Sophia May. Letters, 1841-1857. Sophia May (1784-1870) was the daughter of Col. John May (whose jaunty portrait in military uniform hangs in the AAS reading room) and his wife Abigail, who was also his cousin. Sophia May married Edward Tuckerman (1775-1843). AAS has a business letterbook of Edward Tuckerman’s firm of Tuckerman and Rogers. Among ...
How ‘tis done; or The secret out. An exposure of the tricks and deceptions practiced by professional gamblers with cards and dice … 22nd ed. Carthage, IL: D. C. Cutler, [ca. 1869?] From a small Illinois town 10 miles east of Keokuk and the mighty Mississippi, D. C. Cutler ran a mail-order business for cheap chapbooks, ...
Day-Dawn. New York: American Tract Society, [ca. 1860] Devotional books containing brief Bible passages for daily reading were frequently printed in two-inch miniature format so as to easily fit in a pocket. The American Tract Society was a major 19th-century publisher of these pocket devotionals. This title is new to AAS, and features a splendid gilt ...
Hubbard, Thomas. Commonplace book, 1722-1805. Thomas Hubbard (1702-1773) was born in Boston, the Son of Joseph and Thankfull (Brown) Hubbard. He was a successful merchant in Boston, for a time the treasurer of Harvard and also the Commissary General of the province of Massachusetts. Hubbard began to compile this commonplace book in 1722, the year following ...
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, ...
Ella Cameron, or The maid, wife & widow of a day. An extraordinary revelation, being a true picture of high life in Washington … By an ex-member of Congress. Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., 1861. AAS owns nearly 80% of all pre-1877 titles listed in Lyle Wright’s bibliography of American fiction. Every quarter we add a few ...
The Comical Boys. Philadelphia: J.B. Keller, [ca. 1852] John B. Keller, like his New York counterparts Philip J. Cozans and Elton & Co., specialized in publishing cheap picture books with brashly hand-colored wood engravings. Comical Boys chronicles the misadventures of boys, as in the case of poor Christopher Crow, who ran into a pump handle. The ...
Dennie, Joseph. Papers, 1789-1790. Joseph Dennie (1768-1812) was born in Boston. After graduating from Harvard College, Dennie studied law in Charlestown, NH. Two years later he began contributing essays to newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1796 he became editor of Isaiah Thomas’s The Farmer’s Weekly Museum and continued writing essays. In 1799 Dennie moved ...
Campaign Journal. Providence, RI. April 1, 1861. This rare campaign newspaper, published by the Providence Journal, supported a slate of Republican candidates for state office. One of the candidates was Sullivan Ballou, a successful lawyer and up-and-coming politician in Rhode Island, and a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War he dropped all political ...
An die freyen Erwa?hler von Berks County. Reading, PA, [ca. 1823] This German-language broadside from Berks County, PA, celebrates the life and achievements of Andrew Gregg (1755-1835). Gregg had served in the Delaware militia during the Revolutionary War and was elected a Congressman and Senator for Pennsylvania from 1807 to 1813. By 1823, Gregg had been ...
Egyptian mummy. To be exhibited at the house of [ ]. Ithaca, NY: Mack and Andrus, [between 1825 and 1828] Only known copy, previously unrecorded, of this 8-page promotional pamphlet. Early in 1826, two Egyptian mummies cleared customs in New York on their way to Peale’s Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts on Broadway. One mummy ...
Barbauld, Anna Letitia. Lessons for Children, from Two to Three Years Old. Boston: S. Hall, 1800. This is an unrecorded title, drawn from English writer Anna Letitia Barbauld’s series of Lessons for Children written for youngsters between the ages of two and six. They are written as a series of dialogs between a child (frequently a ...
Ashtabula Telegraph. Record Book, 1849-1853. The Ashtabula (OH) Telegraph was founded in 1846. The publisher was N. W. Thayer and the editor was W. E. Scarsdale. This ledger of nearly 300 pages covers the years 1849-1853 and details Thayer’s accounts with a large number of customers. Activities include subscriptions to and advertising in the Telegraph, job ...
Collection of amateur newspapers. One of our new members, Stan Oliner, is very active in the field of amateur journalism through collecting, writing articles, and serving in national organizations. A while ago, he mailed AAS a large gift of amateur newspapers that we are eagerly going through, selecting many issues for our collection. Illustrated here is ...
