Nothing is hair-raising quite like a chilling photograph. This month, when the occult is most heavily sought after in popular culture, we made a small collection accessible which examines death, the afterlife, photography, technology, and (naturally) print culture. AAS’s impressive collection of stereocard views includes a subset categorized as “Ghost” images. This includes approximately 31 images ...
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at AAS, or what our programs and events look like? We recently set up an Instagram account as a way to promote interest in the collections and resources at the Society as well as to let people know about events and activities. Our digital photographer Cade Overton ...
I recently scanned a few boxes of glass negatives from the collection, all made by one Benjamin T. Hill, an amateur photographer and local historian elected to the Antiquarian Society in 1901 who also served as an auditor for the Society for twenty-three years. These negatives were all made at a fair in Worcester in ...
As a Jay and Deborah Last Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, I was excited to find a wealth of material related to my dissertation on photography and intellectual property law. The United States Constitution pledged “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing, for limited Times, to Authors and Inventors the ...
If you navigate your way to the AAS online content webpage, you’ll find a link to the Society’s digital image archive, GIGI. In GIGI you’ll discover a searchable database of over 50,000 images from the society’s collection - from maps to manuscripts, war images to newspapers, cartoons, illustrations and more. My personal favorite is the ...
This was the question I got recently as I was sorting through some photographic material at my desk and was putting carefully aside a small, round photograph of two children. As you might already know, the American Antiquarian Society has important holdings of early photography, including daguerreotypes from the 1830s and cabinet photographs of performers ...
