Hailed as the foremost painter of the American Revolution, John Trumbull (1756-1843) is best remembered for the four iconic images that grace the walls of the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. These paintings depict pivotal events in our nation’s early history: The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, The Surrender of General Burgoyne, The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and General Washington Resigning his...

The post John Trumbull, Painter of the Revolution appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

If the cold weather kept you from seeing the recent Super Blood Wolf Moon (a.k.a. the total lunar eclipse of January 21, 2019), here’s a celestial event you can view from the comfort of your favorite electronic device: a photograph of a rare, total solar eclipse that darkened the skies over New York City on January 24,...

The post Treasure Trove: The Solar Eclipse of 1925 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson, better known to the world as Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball–he broke the color barrier when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947–was born in Cairo, Georgia, on January 31, 1919. In his ten-year Major Leagues career Robinson participated in six World...

The post Happy Hundredth, Jackie Robinson! appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

This third installment of selections from the James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings (be sure to see part 1 and part 2) focuses on the work of Edith Nankivell (1896-1984), who, with 46 prints, figures prominently in Box 3. In researching her, I discovered that she is in fact the daughter of Frank...

The post Selections from the James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings, part 3 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

An unassuming French pamphlet sits on the shelves at the New-York Historical Society. However, there is far more than meets the eye beneath its aged, brown wrappers. Premier rapport fait au nom du Comité de salut public, sur les moyens d’extirper la mendicité dans les campagnes, & sur les secours que doit accorder la République...

The post Tinker, Tailor, Printer, Spy: Pierrette Jeanne Sophie Charpentier de Mailly appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

For much of the 19th century, New York City’s public transportation was racially segregated, and African Americans were forced to ride on specially designated horse-drawn street cars.  Newspapers documented acts of resistance to these policies of segregation by members of the African American community, some of whom took the street car companies to court. Three examples are cited here. On Sunday,...

The post Before Rosa Parks: Segregation on New York City Street Cars appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

A recent acquisition by the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at N-YHS sheds light on the early history of African American freemasonry. The twelve-page, handwritten Proceedings of the Convention of the Grand Colored Lodge, dated 1845, outlines the intentions of the members of three African American masonic lodges to unite under the auspices of one “Grand Lodge.”...

The post African American Freemasonry and New York’s Grand Colored Lodge appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Set to commence on January 17, 1920, the great social experiment of Prohibition had already begun with a “dry run” for Americans adapting to the restriction of alcohol inspired by World War I. That was followed by a full year anticipating the event through the process of Constitutional amendment and the passage of enforcement legislation...

The post Now on View–“Padlocked”: New York’s Prohibition Years appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

New-York Historical recently acquired a small set of documents related to a 19th century medical doctor, one Laura Morgan. The documents are mostly ephemera dating from the 1860s-1880s, such as admission tickets, business cards, programs. But still waters run deep and these simple fragments lie on the surface of a rich history of women pioneers...

The post Laura Morgan, M.D. appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

With St. Patrick’s Day right around the corner it’s perfect timing for an addendum to this post from a few years ago. It discussed the largely overlooked reality that many nineteenth century Irish immigrants spoke Irish, some exclusively. As it turns out, a curious exchange has turned up in a journal kept by the Irish Quaker merchant, Jacob Harvey,...

The post “In his native tongue”: A Fleeting Glimpse of the Irish Language in 19th Century America appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

“Dear Gellatly, Did you leave a pair of dark leather gloves here? Church.” Writing to his friends, the artist Frederick Stuart Church (1842-1924) was a man of few words. Most of his letters were full of casual thoughts, questions and updates on the weather. Known for his love of animals, Church enlivened his letters with colorful cartoons...

The post Bears and Pie: The Illustrated Letters of Frederick Stuart Church appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Each era spawns its acronyms. (POTUS, FLOTUS, and SCOTUS, anyone?) Some World War II acronyms remain familiar, like WAC, for Women’s Army Corps, and its earlier incarnation, WAAC, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Maybe you know of the WAVES—Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service–a branch of the U.S. Navy in which women could enlist. But chances are you’ve never heard of...

The post “Till Victory is History”: Remembering the W.I.V.E.S. of World War II appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The story of one of New York’s brightest and most dedicated physicians is often eclipsed by his reputation as America’s first wood engraver. Both stories, however, are tied together in a biography of tragedy, strife, hope, and renewal. Alexander Anderson (1775-1870) was not only a doctor and an artist, but a man of great sentiment,...

The post “Of Some Consequence.” Alexander Anderson: Distinguished Doctor, Accomplished Artist appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

With this post, the New-York Historical Society Library introduces a new quarterly feature in which we will highlight the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, BobCat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large...

The post New Finding Aids, 1st quarter, 2019 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Update on April 14, 2020: Hart Island is back in the news for the most tragic of reasons: It’s currently being used as a burial ground for victims of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the time since this post was first published, control of Hart Island was transferred to New York City’s Department of Parks and burials are no...

The post Rare photographs of Hart Island, New York’s potter’s field appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

John B. Cooper prepared to set sail in pursuit of sperm whales aboard the ship Franklin in August 1833. The voyage to the Pacific Ocean originated in Sag Harbor, East Hampton, Long Island. Like many sailors, Cooper kept a log of weather conditions, navigational calculations, and daily activities aboard ship. There are also several poems, essays,...

The post From the Lab: Conserving John B. Cooper’s Whaling Journal appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Sometimes people leave behind a little piece of history that is worth so much to modern day scholars. We do not know who William Worcester Dudley was, but between December 1785 and October 1786, he kept a food diary that tracked every meal he ate for breakfast, dinner, and supper. While it was not uncommon for people to...

The post Victuals, Mincemeat, Pudding, and Veal: William Worcester Dudley’s Food Diary appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

One of the best, if at times maddening parts of any reference librarian or archivist’s job is solving a mystery. What appears at first to be just another query turns into a bona fide challenge. My colleague and I had one such query recently, involving a photo of a clapboard house on East 83rd Street that...

The post Exploring the Geographic Images Collection appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

There was a time when Thomas Cole, the celebrated landscape painter and Hudson River School artist, was an unknown portraitist travelling by foot across the northeast, determined to make a living for himself with nothing but a dollar in his pocket. Cole’s eventual success was due in part to that incredible drive, his passionate commitment...

The post “Nature around me in perfect beauty”: Thomas Cole to John Trumbull appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

“I am large, I contain multitudes.” We continue to remember that self-declared truth about Walt Whitman in this, his 200th birth year. In our American and New York imaginations, he does loom so much larger than simply poet and journalist. We have, in the past, explored on this blog his service as a comforter and...

The post Walt Whitman on the Bowery appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Harry Potter may have come and gone here at the New-York Historical Society but it turns out that the interplay of magic and science that enlivens the Potter series can still be found in the Historical Society’s collections. On this occasion, it emerges from an unidentified colonial physician’s account book. Although it’s generally written in legible scripts, the...

The post Mercury, Sulphur and Vitriol: A Colonial Physician’s Accounts appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

People like to say that the daily newspaper is dying, but, as you pass a newsstand and glance at a headline, do not take those tabloids for granted. We pause here to wish the New York Daily News a happy birthday on its centennial. The Illustrated Daily News first appeared on the morning of June...

The post A Centennial Salute to the Daily News appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

In the spring of 1869, a two-column-inch piece titled “The Great New York Fire in 1835” began appearing in newspapers around the country. Written as a reminiscence “clipped from the columns of the Philadelphia Inquirer,” the piece was actually an advertisement for Aetna Insurance, describing the moment when Aetna’s president had first informed his board...

The post The Great New York Fire of 1835 and the Marketing of Disaster appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

This post is the second in a new quarterly series in which the New-York Historical Society highlights the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, Bobcat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large or...

The post New Finding Aids, 2nd Quarter 2019 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

On October 31, 1969, Time published “The Homosexual: Newly Visible, Newly Understood.” While the controversial piece discussed the public’s growing consciousness of the gay community, it also presented harmful stereotypes, a reflection of the markedly conservative coverage of gay rights issues Time maintained throughout most of its history. At the height of the AIDS crisis, in June...

The post Now on View–“Advocacy Within”: Gay Rights at Time Warner appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

2019 is a year to celebrate the richness of American literature, as poet James Russell Lowell was born on February 22, 1819, two months ago we marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Walt Whitman, and now we certainly want to pause and note that Herman Melville has his bicentennial natal day on August 1....

The post A “Bartleby” Tour for Herman Melville’s 200th Birthday appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

“Se confundió el gozo en el pozo”― “he confused the joy in the well”; which is simply a way of saying that something went wrong which was expected to go right. This was the expression that Saturnino Carrias used in 1848 to express his disappointment upon hearing that the $50,000 dollars in compensation that he...

The post The Struggle for the Reclamation of the Amistad appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Hello, I’m Alec Ferretti, and I recently interned with the Archival Processing Unit at the New-York Historical Society. I’m a professional genealogist by day and a grad student at NYU in their Archives program by night. I set aside every Monday of the spring semester to work on processing collections here in the N-YHS manuscripts division. On...

The post Exploring a life lost to history: Industrialist Irving Olds appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

August 26th is National Dog Day! What better way to celebrate than by sharing a unique,  dog-centric artifact from our library.   This daguerreotype of an unidentified dog (PR-012-2-263)  has the formality of a portrait. The animal’s pose and eye contact with the camera (and us as viewers) personifies it. One of our ongoing preservation projects includes rehousing...

The post Puppies Preserved! appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The idea of mysterious flying saucers piloted by extraterrestrials had, by the 1950s, been popularized to such an extent that even Time magazine’s Circulation Department wanted in on the fun. The magazine itself was less inclined to dabble in science fiction or conspiracy theories, but a letter sent out to potential subscribers nevertheless reported on...

The post A Flying Saucer Sighting in the Time Inc. Records appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

September in New York City marks the beginning of the fall season, but the fashion industry is already looking ahead towards spring with the showcasing of Spring/Summer 2020 collections at New York Fashion Week (NYFW). To celebrate the start of a new fashion season, we’re highlighting the work of world famous fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham...

The post Highlights from the Bill Cunningham “Facades” Photograph Collection appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

On July 3, 1776, the Continental Congress authorized privateering on the high seas. Essentially, any private citizen who obtained a Commission of Marque and Reprisal would be permitted to capture British ships. A common warfare tactic since the Middle Ages, the intent of the act was to weaken the enemy at sea while trading confiscated...

The post Gustavus Conyngham: American Privateer appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Five women huddle around an apartment table on January 18, 1923. Some balance babies on their laps. Older children look on. One boy in a knitted cap stares at the camera, more interested by the photographer than by what the ladies are doing. They seem to be copying in notebooks the exemplars from a portable chalkboard...

The post Becoming American: The Education Committee for Non-English Speaking Women appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The entertainment and moral education of children through books has not always been intertwined. American Puritanism frowned upon the fantastical imaginations that children often have and appreciate. Many children’s books from the eighteenth century instead emphasize the importance of virtuous behavior and the devastating consequences of vice through cautionary tales. Not until the nineteenth century...

The post Now on View–A Tale for Youth: Amusement and Instruction in American Children’s Books appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

This post is the third in a quarterly series in which the New-York Historical Society highlights the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, Bobcat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large or complex...

The post New Finding Aids, 3rd Quarter 2019 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Happy October everyone! Halloween is upon us which means it’s time to pick out a costume. The Costume Ball Photograph Collection (PR 223) is the perfect collection to inspire your choice. The collection contains photographs and mounted clippings of members of high society attending New York balls from 1875 to 1932. The New-York Historical Society Collection of...

The post Halloween Costume Inspiration from the Gilded Age appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Since its completion in 1818, John Trumbull’s “Signing of the Declaration of Independence” remains one of the most recognizable paintings among Americans. Commissioned by Congress with the intent of housing it in the United States Capitol, Trumbull took several creative liberties to represent one of the most significant events of the American Revolution and to...

The post John Trumbull’s Clapback* appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Like many of the nation’s most revered historical events, Thanksgiving has accumulated a lore that often makes  the lines between fact and fiction indecipherable.  Of particular note is the purported landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in December 1620. Although historians have recognized its dubious foundations for some time (after all, the first assertion...

The post “Revere the Rock of Plymouth”: An American Relic appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

On February 22, 1865, Private William Joseph Nelson wrote a petition for leniency from prison. The black Ohioan was being held as a deserter and explained why he had to leave the army. He said that recruiters cheated him out of his much-needed bounty, forcing him to abandon his post and see to his family....

The post The Loving Black Mercenaries of the Civil War appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

What’s Christmas without Christmas cards? The fanciful greetings here are the work of Oscar Fabres (1894–1960), a Chilean illustrator who studied art in Paris and settled in New York in 1940, where he lived and kept a studio at 715 Madison Avenue. The Oscar Fabres Collection (PR 079), bequeathed to the New-York Historical Society by the artist’s agent,...

The post Santa in the City: The Christmas Cards of Oscar Fabres appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Little is known about long-lived David Grim (1737-1826) outside of the brief personal account of his life held by the New-York Historical Society Library. What can be said is that his memory was sound. A tavern keeper, merchant, and owner of Hessian’s Coffee House from 1767 to 1789, Grim sought to leave behind more than an...

The post “A Correct and Perfect Recollection”: David Grim’s Map of Prerevolutionary Manhattan appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

New Yorkers and Bostonians have a number of things to dispute—Yankees versus Red Sox, Manhattan versus New England clam chowder, good or bad memories of the Super Bowl in 2008 and 2012. We will avoid adding, “Where was the first blood of the American Revolution shed?” as another. Yes, we concede the Boston Massacre of...

The post The Battle of Golden Hill: New York’s Opening Act of Revolutionary Bloodshed appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

This post is one in a quarterly series in which the New-York Historical Society highlights the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, Bobcat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large or complex that...

The post New Finding Aids, 4th Quarter 2019 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Twenty years before the United States declared its independence from Great Britain, a group of colonial representatives from nine colonies met in Albany, New York during the onset of the French and Indian War. The Albany Congress of 1754 brought together colonial and Indigenous leaders in an attempt to strengthen relations while defending the northern...

The post Benjamin Franklin’s Plan for Unification appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Could a subway station have a grand piano, chandeliers, and a fountain with goldfish to boot? Alfred Ely Beach certainly believed so in the years following the Civil War, and, in fact, he was not deterred in creating such a subway, one that debuted 150 years ago, on February 26, 1870. Beach (1826-1896) was an...

The post Beach Pneumatic Transit: The 1870 Subway That Could Have Been? appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Prior to the construction of Robert Mills’ Washington Monument in 1833, proposals to erect a memorial in honor of George Washington began as early as 1783. The defeat of the British under his command and his consecutive time as the first President of the United States had thrust Washington into the public’s mind as an...

The post Benjamin West’s Memorial to Washington appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

From the title Scholars and Gentlemen, one of the essential histories written about the New-York Historical Society and that dates from the 1980s, one might get the wrong impression, that only men played a role in the life of the institution over the course of its 216 years. Yet many women have played significant roles...

The post Martha Lamb: New-York Historical Society Pioneer appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

When Rose O’Neill’s illustrations appeared in True Magazine on September 19, 1896, she made history by becoming the first female cartoonist to publish a comic strip in America. A self-taught artist, O’Neill (1874-1944) had spent her childhood studying artists and submitting her work to various periodicals around the country. She set out for New York City at...

The post Rose O’Neill, Mother of the Kewpies appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The Department of Prints, Photographs and Architectural Collections in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library is home to one of the largest cased image collections in the country, consisting largely of daguerreotype, ambrotype or tintype portraits. Cased images typically include the image plate and a cover glass wrapped together in a brass mat, placed inside a...

The post An Ambrotype Army from the Cased Image File appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Food is a critical part of our daily lives, and of our history. Cuisine is passed down from generation to generation and is an expression of a shared identity. At the most basic level, it reflects ethnicity, but also lifestyle, values, and traditions.  The Duane and Wells family’s recipe book gives us a glimpse into...

The post Food for Thought: The Duane Family Cookbooks, 1840-1874 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.