There has been much interest in the Civil War of late. The increased coverage makes sense given that next few years mark 150 years since the conflict that divided our United States. Here at Past is Present, we would like to highlight another side of the war years. Rather than focusing on the battles or ...
Today we continue a series of blog posts highlighting items from our upcoming Adopt-a-Book event, slated for Tuesday, March 29, 2011, at 6PM in Antiquarian Hall. You can read the entire Adopt-a-Book 2011 catalog on the AAS website, where you will find descriptions of all 176 items up for adoption this year. The Society’s ...
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 ...
Campaign Journal. Providence, RI. April 1, 1861. This rare campaign newspaper, published by the Providence Journal, supported a slate of Republican candidates for state office. One of the candidates was Sullivan Ballou, a successful lawyer and up-and-coming politician in Rhode Island, and a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War he dropped all political ...
Ashtabula Telegraph. Record Book, 1849-1853. The Ashtabula (OH) Telegraph was founded in 1846. The publisher was N. W. Thayer and the editor was W. E. Scarsdale. This ledger of nearly 300 pages covers the years 1849-1853 and details Thayer’s accounts with a large number of customers. Activities include subscriptions to and advertising in the Telegraph, job ...
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 ...
Diario del Gobierno de la Habana. Aug. 11, 1812. One of the gems of the AAS newspaper collection is its Caribbean newspaper holdings. During the summer of 2009, we took advantage of an opportunity to purchase almost 130 issues of early Cuban newspapers. The titles, dates, and number of issues we acquired ...
The Weekly Junior Register. Franklin, LA. May 2, 1863. Vol. 2, no. 17. In 1860 there were 555 paper manufacturers in the United States, but only 24 were in the South. Hence Confederate newspaper offices often had trouble obtaining printing paper during the Civil War. They were forced to seek alternative paper ...
This week we feature two items acquired by AAS in recent months. What they have in common is that our copies are the only ones known to exist. Given the age of these items (they were printed in 1795 and 1815 respectively) and given the fact that generations of bibliographers have labored to identify and ...
Avis G. Clarke, cataloger-cum-researcher of early American imprints and printers, filled hundreds of AAS card catalogue drawers with the AAS printers’ file. Detailing the lives and works of virtually every printer working in America before 1820, the printers’ file is a masterpiece of indexing. Comprising 134 drawers of biographical, printing, and publication ...
