Tuckerman, Sophia May. Letters, 1841-1857. Sophia May (1784-1870) was the daughter of Col. John May (whose jaunty portrait in military uniform hangs in the AAS reading room) and his wife Abigail, who was also his cousin. Sophia May married Edward Tuckerman (1775-1843). AAS has a business letterbook of Edward Tuckerman’s firm of Tuckerman and Rogers. Among ...
How ‘tis done; or The secret out. An exposure of the tricks and deceptions practiced by professional gamblers with cards and dice … 22nd ed. Carthage, IL: D. C. Cutler, [ca. 1869?] From a small Illinois town 10 miles east of Keokuk and the mighty Mississippi, D. C. Cutler ran a mail-order business for cheap chapbooks, ...
Day-Dawn. New York: American Tract Society, [ca. 1860] Devotional books containing brief Bible passages for daily reading were frequently printed in two-inch miniature format so as to easily fit in a pocket. The American Tract Society was a major 19th-century publisher of these pocket devotionals. This title is new to AAS, and features a splendid gilt ...
Hubbard, Thomas. Commonplace book, 1722-1805. Thomas Hubbard (1702-1773) was born in Boston, the Son of Joseph and Thankfull (Brown) Hubbard. He was a successful merchant in Boston, for a time the treasurer of Harvard and also the Commissary General of the province of Massachusetts. Hubbard began to compile this commonplace book in 1722, the year following ...
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, ...
Ella Cameron, or The maid, wife & widow of a day. An extraordinary revelation, being a true picture of high life in Washington … By an ex-member of Congress. Philadelphia: Barclay & Co., 1861. AAS owns nearly 80% of all pre-1877 titles listed in Lyle Wright’s bibliography of American fiction. Every quarter we add a few ...
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 ...
Dennie, Joseph. Papers, 1789-1790. Joseph Dennie (1768-1812) was born in Boston. After graduating from Harvard College, Dennie studied law in Charlestown, NH. Two years later he began contributing essays to newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont. In 1796 he became editor of Isaiah Thomas’s The Farmer’s Weekly Museum and continued writing essays. In 1799 Dennie moved ...
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 ...
Egyptian mummy. To be exhibited at the house of [ ]. Ithaca, NY: Mack and Andrus, [between 1825 and 1828] Only known copy, previously unrecorded, of this 8-page promotional pamphlet. Early in 1826, two Egyptian mummies cleared customs in New York on their way to Peale’s Museum and Gallery of Fine Arts on Broadway. One mummy ...
Collection of amateur newspapers. One of our new members, Stan Oliner, is very active in the field of amateur journalism through collecting, writing articles, and serving in national organizations. A while ago, he mailed AAS a large gift of amateur newspapers that we are eagerly going through, selecting many issues for our collection. Illustrated here is ...
Abduction of Charlie Brewster Ross. Philadelphia: Wm. F. Murphy’s Sons, 1874. This broadside is an early example of the use of photography on public posters. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency, invented the photographic mug shot; during the 1860s and early 1870s, he often used small albumen photos on wanted posters for ...
Two titles were recently added to AAS's collection of Amateur Newspapers. The Orb. Portland, ME. 1838. 3 issues. Adopted by Jo Radner. The Liliputian. Canajoharie, NY. 1876, 1877. 22 issues. Amateur newspapers were printed usually by teenagers, and more for the pleasure and experience rather than profit. The Orb (recently "adopted" by Jo Radner during AAS's ...
Many of us begin a new academic or fiscal year this week. In the spirit of new beginnings and renewed vows of organization, AAS has added an RSS feed to our website. Those who have visited the AAS website recently have no doubt noticed how much content has been added, events promoted, books published, etc. ...
Collection of omnibus editions, ca. 1840-1855. AAS has purchased from member Mark Craig an interesting and very unusual collection of 14 omnibus editions, all in fine condition in the original blind- and gilt-embossed publisher’s sheep bindings. These omnibus editions typically consist of 16mo stereotype reprints of popular and juvenile fiction, with three to four works bound ...
