Upcoming Exhibition on McLoughlin Brothers is “Radiant with Color & Art”

From December 6 through February 3, highlights from AAS’s stunning collection of some three thousand McLoughlin Brothers books, games, and artwork will be out of the stacks and on display at the famous Grolier Club (47 E. 60th St., New York) in the exhibition Radiant with Color & Art: McLoughlin Brothers and the Business of ...

Fall Issue of Almanac Now Available

The fall issue of the AAS newsletter, Almanac, is hot off the press and ready for your reading! There are some great pieces in this installment including: An update on the expansion and renovation of Antiquarian Hall featuring coverage of the groundbreaking and progress of the construction. This September edition also takes an in-depth look ...

Construction Begins On Antiquarian Hall

After months of preparation that included shifting stacks, boxing up objects, and countless meetings about architectural plans, the ground has finally been broken—both figuratively and literally—on the expansion and renovation of Antiquarian Hall. The Preparation As with any major building project, much of the time in the months preceding the actual construction was spent on refining and ...

Spring Issue of Almanac Now Available

The spring issue of the AAS newsletter, Almanac, is fresh off the press and ready for your perusal. Here are some highlights from this issue: The first part of a three-part series about the expansion and renovation of Antiquarian Hall focusing on the HVAC upgrades An "AAS Heritage" piece about the various HVAC issues the Society has ...

Tenth Annual Adopt-a-Book – Now Launched!

Springtime means it is time for the AAS Adopt-a-Book fundraiser! A hearty thank you to all who have participated in this popular event in the past. We have raised over $125,000 for acquisitions over the last nine years. Today, Tuesday, April 4th, we launch our tenth annual online catalog of "orphans" to be adopted. This year, ...

Isaiah’s Back In the Worcester Public Schools

Do you know what year it is? Well, Isaiah Thomas thinks it is 1812. That is, the reincarnated Isaiah who is currently going into fifth-grade classrooms and sharing some of his favorite books and broadsides with students. This Isaiah also brainstorms with these students what he should do with these materials. He is particularly concerned ...

Put on your hard hats (and thinking caps)!

When the Rijksmuseum was being renovated over a decade ago, I received a postcard featuring a spirited version of Rembrandt’s oil on canvas, “The Night Watch.” I found the playfulness of the image, an icon for the famous museum in Amsterdam jazzed up with construction equipment, so compelling that I kept it. An article appearing ...

The 2015-16 Annual Report is now available!

This year is shaping up to be a big one for the Society, heading into the groundbreaking for the renovation and new addition to Antiquarian Hall in April. As part of that forward-looking process, we've also begun to refine how we share the mission and work of the Society. One of the first steps we've ...

Isaiah Is Going Digital: The Prototype

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A few weeks ago, a post shared the final cut of a short film depicting a young Isaiah Thomas learning about the legal indenture that bound him to his apprenticeship. As explained in the post, that film is part of a larger project that aims to create an interactive educational website inspired by AAS’s one-man ...

Visit AAS at the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair!

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Want to see a souvenir score card from the 1915 World Series between the Red Sox and the Phillies?  How about first editions by Lewis Carroll, Stephen King, Jonathan Swift, Sylvia Plath, or Toni Morrison?  A signed photograph of Harry Houdini?  A book printed from wood blocks in 1250?  An illustrated Japanese edition of Don ...

Newest Issue of the Almanac Features Some Big News about AAS

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“This project will secure the base of collection and program management as AAS moves forward with strength and purpose into its third century.” – Bill Reese, AAS Councilor Usually we plug new issues of the Almanac by talking about great recent acquisitions, upcoming programs, and spotlights on AAS history and new projects. This is no different ...

Isaiah Thomas Is Going Digital

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On a beautiful sunny day in June, AAS Director of Outreach Jim Moran and I headed out to Historic Deerfield in western Massachusetts to meet up with a film crew from Northern Light Productions. Surrounded by the dark wood and heavy equipment of the Wilson Printing Office, it wasn’t difficult to set the stage for ...

How to get Red Sox tickets and help AAS acquisitions at the same time!

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“Fenway is the essence of baseball.”  - Tom Seaver “I see great things in baseball.”  - Walt Whitman It is April and once again it is a fresh, new season of baseball.  The sports pages are full of box scores and statistics.  Bars are filled with people arguing over batting orders and when pitchers should have been ...

It’s the time of year to Adopt-a-Book!

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What do a wolverine, sunshine, runaway sailors, weaving, and baseball have in common?  These are the titles or subjects of items available at our ninth annual Adopt-a-Book program! Once again our intrepid curators have put together a group of items acquired over the past year or so and put them up for “adoption.”  Supporters of ...

Spring issue of the Almanac now available!

From "Guess Again or Easy Enigmas Puzzles, for Little Folks." Philadelphia: Morgan Yeager, ca 1824. Illustrations by William Charles.

The spring issue of our twice annual newsletter, the Almanac, is now available online! Exciting public programs (a musical performance and the return of Nathaniel Philbrick among them), new online resources, and information about the 9th annual Adopt-a-Book fundraiser are all included. Feature pieces include: a history of the Goddard-Daniels House the recent acquisition of a wonderful collection of thirty-six ...