Fellow Reflections with Kirsten Fischer

A Fellow’s Experience: Kirsten Fischer We asked Kirsten Fischer, associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota and a former AAS Peterson Fellow (2016 –17), to discuss how her research at the Society helped shape her recently published book, American Freethinker: Elihu Palmer and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in the New Nation (2020). How did ...

The Story of Emily & Benjamin

IMG_5007

Earlier this year the American Antiquarian Society acquired an important archive of manuscripts and drawings related to American missionary activity in Western Africa.  The collection tells the story of a couple, Emily Griswold (1838-1906) and her eventual husband, Benjamin Hartley (1838-1912). Emily was the daughter of the poet and publisher Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who edited anthologies, ...

Spreading the News of the Declaration of Independence

Declar of Indep - Salem-Charlton

As the United States is gearing up to celebrate its independence for the 239th time, here in the Outreach Department at AAS we’re also gearing up for another kind of event, taking place for the first time: hosting an NEH Institute for K-12 Teachers. Among the many sessions in this institute, titled The News Media and ...

Samuel Langdon, Summer Jobs, and My Experience at the AAS

Dan Boudreau is a summer page at AAS and a rising senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), located directly across the street from AAS. A few months ago we had posted about the work of two WPI students with the “A New Nation Votes” project. In this current post, Dan, one of those two students, ...