The history of Books & Culture through one writer.

George Marsden on “The Twilight of the American Enlightenment.”

A new Liz Carlyle novel from Stella Rimington.

Take and read.

Between 1945 and 1960 the number of television sets in use in the United States rose from a few thousand to approximately 60 million. Although many of the programs shown originated in New York City, many of Gotham’s denizens had to endure a steadily degrading signal reception. The cause: new buildings in the vertically growing...

The post Wiring Manhattan: Sterling Communications and Cable Television in New York City appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Dancing geishas, ancient palaces, drifting over misty rivers in a houseboat. The adventures of a businessman traveling through China, Japan, and Korea in 1923 are captured within the detailed correspondence and ephemera saved by Myron S. Falk (1878-1945), an engineer from New York City who was sent on a trip to Asia with the American Silk...

The post The 1923 American Silk Mission to Asia appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Though not yet recognized nationally, today is American Eagle Day, the anniversary of the eagle’s inclusion on the Great Seal of the United States on June 20, 1782. Despite also becoming our national emblem in 1789, for decades at the end of the last century the eagle was in dire circumstances. The effects of DDT...

The post “Undaunted, defiant & unsubdued”: The American Eagle appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Since its early days, the Ethical Culture Fieldston School has made use of its buildings for summer programs, both for enrolled students and the public. In 1919, the Summer Play School was founded in partnership with the New York Federation for Child Study, providing summer activities and meals for underprivileged children at the Ethical Culture...

The post S’more fun: The Ethical Culture Camp appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Tiny Canal Park, a .66-acre triangular green space that sits on Canal Street between Washington and West Streets, hides a substantial history. The city’s ownership of this land dates back to the Dongan Charter in 1686 and the Montgomery Charter in 1730. By the time this land was approved as a site for the Clinton...

The post The Return of Canal Park appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The genealogy of America’s earliest Jews can be traced through multiple veins of the Nathan family, including the Hendricks branch, the Seixas branch, and the Mendes branch. However, perhaps no part of the Nathan bloodline is as historically rich and prestigious as their connection to the Gomez family, through which Edgar J. Nathan, Jr.–whose papers have...

The post America’s First Jewish Settlers appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Have you mailed your holiday cards yet? The United States Postal Service lists December 20th as the last day to post letters for arrival by Christmas! In the early 20th century, artsy students at the Ethical Culture School in Manhattan printed Christmas festival programs on the school’s own press. Most of the illustrations feature motifs you might...

The post Ethical Christmas Wishes appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

We are upon a new year and a new political season, as recently-elected governors and legislators take their oaths and move into their offices. Hiring staff is always the first task at hand.  Does one “clean house” of the holdovers or retain them? This question may have had its most relevance in the early American...

The post A Cabinet Staff of Cutthroats, Picaroons, and Nincumpoops appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The fact that Russian World War I soldiers remained prisoners of war well after the November 1918 Armistice is one of the more obscure aspects of the war’s history. But with civil war raging in Russia, concerns arose over repatriating soldiers that might return to reinforce the Bolsheviks. This meant large number of Russian soldiers remained in...

The post Camp Sagan: The Forgotten Prisoners of World War I 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.

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.

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.