The Acquisitions Table: Camp of the Duryea’s Zouaves Federal Hill

Camp of the Duryea’s Zouaves Federal Hill Baltimore, Md. Looking North. Baltimore: E. Sachse& Co., 1861.  This hand colored lithograph is one of six prints of Civil War encampments by E. Sachse& Co. given to the Society by member David Doret.  The publisher, Edward Sachse (1804-1873), had just opened at a new location on South ...

Santa, photographed

Some children would do just about anything to catch a glimpse of the gift-giving St. Nick on Christmas Eve – others have parents who would set up a camera and create a stereographic photograph to capture the whole visit. This image, titled “Santa Claus loaded for business” illustrates just such a scene. A bearded and ...

The Acquisitions Table: Photograph Album

Photograph Album. [1863-1866]. This album of over 150 cartes-de-visite images of American prints illustrates the methods used to distribute images in the nineteenth century.  Many of the photographs were made by John B. Soule.  Soule worked with lithographers, such as J. H. Bufford, to reproduce popular lithographed images of children, attractive women, kittens, and comical ...

Tribute to a Legendary AAS Staff Member

As a description of a professional trajectory in the research library world, it certainly makes for an impressive resume: Library Assistant, American Antiquarian Society Curator of Maps and Prints, American Antiquarian Society Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts, American Antiquarian Society Director, Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American Antiquarian Society At the same time, it’s not unheard of. ...

The Acquisitions Table: Amalgamation. The Wedding.

Edward W. Clay, Practical Amalgamation. The Wedding. New York, John Childs, ca. 1839.  This print by Edward W. Clay is one in a series of images that comments on interracial relationships in America during the 1830s.  Most of the prints in the set are held by the Society.  This impression is actually a second copy ...

It’s a Small World under the Big Top

This month Circus and the City: New York, 1793-2010 opened at the Bard Graduate Center Galleries in New York (September 12, 2012 to February 3, 2013).  You can learn more about the exhibition here. Two former AAS fellows, Matthew Wittmann and Brett Mizelle, contributed essays to the related (and very substantial) publication, The American Circus (New ...

The Acquisitions Table: The Cambrian of Boston

W. Barnard after Joshua Cartwright, The Cambrian of Boston, Willm. Marshall Master. Beating off a French Butter Privateer, on 23 October 1804. Boston, C. Cave, 1805. In the fall of 1804, the British ship Cambrian was part of a blockade of New York Harbor.  This print depicts the ship engaging a French cutter (several French ...

The Acquisitions Table: No License

No license. A question to be settled in the State of New York. New York: Journal of the American Temperance Union, 1846. On linen. This textile broadside was issued as an extra to the Journal of the American Temperance Union during the 1846 elections in New York State.  That year, every one of the 800+ towns ...

The Acquisitions Table: The Quarrel

E.W. Clay, attr., The Quarrel, lithograph, NY: John Childs, 1839. This previously unrecorded cartoon, published in New York, is one in a set of prints investigating the social implications of interaction between white citizens and African Americans.  The cartoon, which was probably designed by the artist Edward W. Clay for John Childs, depicts two African American ...

The Acquisitions Table: Tintypes and Ambrotype

Hollis Jubal Haven with American flag, tintype, 1861; Unidentified Civil War soldier with bayonet, ambrotype; and Albertina Haven Revere, tintype. Occasionally AAS visitors bring along objects they wish to donate to the Society. This autumn we had several visits from Dr. Christian W. Aussenheimer, a Worcester resident with connections to the Haven and Hoar families. ...

The Acquisitions Table: Funeral Honors to the Memory of La Fayette

Arrangements for paying funeral honors to the memory of La Fayette, on Tuesday, July 15, in the city of Hudson. Hudson, NY: P. Dean Carrique, 1834. When the Marquis de Lafayette died on May 20, 1834, Americans—who still closely identified the French general with the success of the American Revolutionary War—marked the occasion with solemn ...

The Acquisitions Table: Portrait of Nathaniel Bowditch

Harding, Chester, attr. Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838). Oil on canvas, [ca. 1830] Salem navigator and mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch was also the author of several atlases and scientific publications which can be found in the AAS collection. Bowditch is perhaps most famous for his 1802 publication, The New American Practical Navigator, which went through several editions in ...

The Acquisitions Table: Carrier’s Address to the Patrons of the Bridgeton Chronicle

Carrier’s address to the patrons of the Bridgeton Chronicle, January 1, 1864. Bridgeton, NJ: James M. Seymour & Matthew Newell, 1863.  This carrier’s address came to AAS with a large group of New Jersey newspapers. Written at the end of 1863, the central poem, topped by a cut of a U.S. Mail train, focuses on ...