The holiday rush has started for us all, so we hope you will forgive us at Past is Present for having taken a bit of a break recently. To kick off the month of December, in the spirit of Christmas giving, please accept these chromolithographed Christmas cards as our present from the past. Click on ...
A previously unrecorded satirical cartoon printed in Lowell, MA, by J.H. Varney, possibly a relation of (or pseudonym for) local newspaper publisher Samuel J. Varney. The cartoon references the 1840 repeal of a Massachusetts state law which regulated the sale of alcohol in quantities under 15 gallons. A large railroad carriage full of drunken men ...
This large, colorful broadside was probably printed in two different locations. The red-printed border, which includes advertising slogans suitable for dry goods merchants (and a cartoon of a horse-drawn mail wagon and train with caption “Clear the tracks!!”), bears the Philadelphia imprint of John Duross. The bordered blank sheets were presumably sold to merchants across ...
As the Prints in the Parlor (PIP) Project begins its last leg of digitization and access to images generated, those of us involved with it find ourselves itching to pull together some of the results into conversation with one another. The reason for this is to show how these book illustrations, sometimes independent of the ...
"Strike, but hear.” Homer, NY, August 16, 1862. This broadside, found between the pages of an August 1862 issue of the Cortland County Republican newspaper, recounts the difficulties of taxation and raising bonds in the small town of Homer, NY, during the Civil War. Issued by dry good merchant (and Town Supervisor) George W. Phillips, the ...
This summer, Graphic Arts intern Dominique Ledoux, a student at Wellesley College, created an inventory of the Society’s collection of 464 watch papers. Watch papers are round decorative papers placed between the inner and outer case of a pocket watch to protect its inner workings. They also served as advertisements for watchmakers as they often ...
Regnier, Auguste (after a painting by Junius Brutus Stearns). The life of George Washington the soldier. New York & Paris: Goupil & Co., 1854. Printed by Lemercier, Paris. This print is one of four in a set depicting the life George Washington—the other prints include renditions of Washington as a citizen, a farmer, and a Christian. ...
No rose without a thorn. New York: Nathaniel Currier, [1838-1856] Shown with "My Master's Wife" When he started his business on Nassau Street in New York City, Nathaniel Currier offered for sale lithographs of news events, historic images, local views, and pretty women. He also occasionally produced narrative genre scenes such as this curious depiction of ...
In August and December of 2010, the AAS received additional gifts to supplement the already delectable David Claypoole Johnston Family Collection. (You can see a portrait of the artist and read a short bio as part of the online exhibition of Portraits at the American Antiquarian Society.) Of the material which came (in the form of ...
Luckily, the American Antiquarian Society does not collect in all areas of human condition and experience. An example of such an area? Internal organs. What we do have, however, is a rich collection around this object of study. And whereas February was American Heart Month, an opportunity in the calendar year to focus on the well-being of what ...
Fraud Week on Past is Present concludes today on an appropriately ambiguous note with examples from AAS's graphic arts collections, most of which are not true forgeries but rather what might be called wishful attributions. These works of art hover perpetually in "the limbo of doubtful pictures," to quote an earlier AAS librarian. ...
Abraham Lincoln is a hot topic these days. From renowned historians to local students, everyone is interested in learning more about the man who once declared: “I was born and have ever remained in the most humble walks of life.” While Lincoln has been a perennial favorite for researchers at AAS, recently interest in ...
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, ...
To mark the start of a new year, in the 18th and 19th centuries it was traditional for newspapers to issue new years' addresses, or carrier's addresses. (Click here to see AAS's online catalog records for over 1,300 of these addresses.) This extra supplement to the paper usually consisted of verses written in the ...
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 ...
