It doesn’t stop with “Antiquarian…” or, I’ll take what’s behind door number one!

Blog post 1 001

Assistant Curator of Manuscripts and Assistant Reference Library Tracey Kry comments on her impressions of AAS as a newly-arrived employee. A couple of months ago now, we had a post about creating an AAS Glossary that would talk about terms and collections unique to AAS (http://pastispresent.org/category/aas-glossary/ ).  The first post was about people’s confusion with the ...

Cataloger Uncovers Scandal: “It was Unrequited Love”

The Map of Portland, Oregon

Like the other catalogers here at AAS, part of my job as the Graphic Arts cataloger is to figure out the artists, sitters, publishers and others who contributed to the works in the collection. So when I catalogued a large color lithograph view of Portland, Oregon from 1891, I noticed that the copyright holders were ...

The Question: Something Smells Fishy

drawings_box2_folder7

If Abigail Adams were planning an Independence Day feast what would she make? According to a 1964 New York Times article: “green turtle soup, New England poached salmon with egg sauce and apple pan dowdy.” In fact, the article claims she served this fine menu to John Adams on the very first Independence Day. Is ...

Type Findings: Introducing the AAS Printers’ File

Avis Clarke

Avis G. Clarke, cataloger-cum-researcher of early American imprints and printers, filled hundreds of AAS card catalogue drawers with the AAS printers’ file. Detailing the lives and works of virtually every printer working in America before 1820, the printers’ file is a masterpiece of indexing. Comprising 134 drawers of biographical, printing, and publication ...

The Answer, or what to do when Google doesn’t give it up easily

wayourpeoplelived

Ding, ding, ding... We have a winner! Our exercise in crowd-sourcing research questions was a success, and all the antiquarian glory goes to peterme for solving the reference mystery posed in our earlier post. The correct book our reader was looking for was (drum-roll please) “The Way Our People Lived: an Intimate American ...

The Question: See if YOU can solve this reference mystery

bookquestion

I was in a bookstore in the '80s and started reading a book about Puritans feeding their babies ale but now I can't remember the title. Can you help me find the book? This is the kind of question we live for at AAS: the test that can make or break you as a professional. ...

The Embezzler Redeemed – Part 3

brower_manhattan_company_bank_note

Continued from Part 2 of the Embezzler Redeemed One possible answer to this question is suggested by an account published in the November 19, 1803 issue of the Morning Chronicle. We understand that the Manhattan Company have discovered a further fraud of about eight thousand dollars, committed by Benjamin Brower, previous to his elopements. It is said ...

The Embezzler Redeemed- Part 2

brower_wall_street

Continued from Part 1 of "The Embezzler Redeemed" A report that Benjamin Brower had been apprehended at Albany was refuted almost immediately as being “wholly without foundation.”  But on October 25, 1803, the New England Palladium (Boston) briefly reported he had been captured.  On the 29th the New York Morning Chronicle expanded upon the news of ...