“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 ...
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 ...
Dylan McDonough, an AAS summer staffer working on the Printers’ File, attends Harvard College, where he is a rising junior with a concentration in history. A native of Worcester, he graduated from Bancroft School in 2014 and has returned to the area each of the last two summers. Here, he shares a glimpse of his ...
There’s no shortage of celebrations here in Massachusetts for today’s holiday, even if it is a holiday that almost nobody from any other state (with the exception of Maine and Wisconsin) has ever heard of. But for a native of Massachusetts who likes history, Patriots’ Day is about as good as it gets. After all, ...
Periodically, C-SPAN2 Book TV and C-SPAN3 American History TV profile regional American cities through a series they call C-SPAN Cities Tour. Working with their local cable partners, special C-SPAN production crews explore the literary life and history of these cities by interviewing local historians, librarians, authors, and civic leaders. Last Autumn C-SPAN visited Worcester and ...
Libraries like the American Antiquarian Society exist not just to preserve material, but also to help people find it. Detailed descriptions of items in our catalog records and thoughtfully designed systems of organization ensure that items in our collection can be located. But AAS also relies to a great extent on institutional memory—the knowledge of ...
In his 1913 “Report of the Librarian” published in the AAS Proceedings, Clarence Brigham concludes with an account of “one of the most valuable gifts ever received by the Society.” It was a collection of some 300 pieces of Staffordshire with American scenes. “It is particularly appropriate,” noted Brigham, “that the Society, which already possesses ...
It's that time again—the latest issue of the Almanac is now out! This issue features stories from every department at the Society, from curatorial and readers' services to outreach and digital humanities. Some highlights include: a generous gift to AAS from a local member and former AAS councilor a new digital project featuring Isaiah Thomas's collection of ...
Sometimes the most unassuming objects can take on powerful meaning. A small, sealed glass bottle of tea, displayed at the American Antiquarian Society, is a case in point. Donated in 1840 by the Reverend Thaddeus M. Harris (1768-1842), a Unitarian clergyman in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and a member of AAS, the tea is one of the ...
Many around here thought that this first post-bicentennial fiscal year would be quiet, unexciting, a return to routine. What they didn't count on was the creation of a digital humanities curator position to refine, focus, and expand our already extensive digital projects; an explosion of our social media presence; and of course, the awarding of a ...
Since our founder Isaiah Thomas’s research for his ambitious The History of Printing in America (1810), AAS has held the largest collection of data on the early American book trades in North America and the Caribbean. The bulk of this information exists on 25 drawers of cards in our reading room and is known as ...
Well, it's now been four weeks since I was at the White House to accept the National Humanities Medal on behalf of the American Antiquarian Society, and I can't say that I've yet got my feet back on terra firma. And with cards, letters, calls, emails, and Facebook comments continuing to stream in -- from AAS members, ...
Join us here today, at 3 p.m., for a live feed of the 2013 National Humanities Medal ceremony taking place at the White House! AAS president Ellen Dunlap with be accepting the award on behalf of the Society, as well as AAS Council Chair Sid Lapidus and AAS Councilor Bill Reese. We are also following Ellen's ...
AAS is extremely humbled and honored to be a recipient of a 2013 National Humanities Medal. President Barack Obama will present the medal to Ellen S. Dunlap, AAS president, Sid Lapidus, AAS Council Chair, and William S. Reese, AAS Councilor at the White House on Monday, July 28, 2014, at 3 p.m. The citation for ...
Here at AAS, nary a holiday goes by without some reflection on how the same was celebrated in days past. On this Fourth of July we’re going to take a trip back 200 years and check in on how our founder, Isaiah Thomas, celebrated the holiday. In July 1814 the United States was in the midst ...
