Previewing the July/August issue.

Stan Guthrie’s helpful survey.

Eavesdropping, e-bombs, and more: a smart, fast-paced thriller.

A new Liz Carlyle novel from Stella Rimington.

Respecting the whole arc of Scripture.

Episode 1.

An editor's not-so-occult revelations.

Sometimes your bright ideas don't pan out.

I’m a big fan of ZEIT Now1 as an application hosting provider. The way the service abstracts all of the cloud computing details and allows teams to focus on building and deploying web applications is fantastic. That said, I had a lot of trouble setting up secure environment variables for my first application to use....

Sometimes when catalogers examine a book, we find that parts of its structure use recycled materials from other books. These materials are often invisible, hidden away under outer coverings of paper or leather, and revealed only when an item is damaged or taken apart for conservation. But sometimes, the entire outer cover itself is made from...

The post Rare Books Revealed: Parchment Repurposed appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

A series of remarkable photographs from the library’s Geographic File (PR20) documents the construction of the Central Park Reservoir,  located between 86th and 96th streets.  Built between 1858 and 1862, the 106-acre reservoir is 40 feet deep and holds over a billion gallons of water. Once a critical part of the city’s fresh water system, it received water from the Croton...

The post Treasure Trove: Constructing the Central Park Reservoir appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

It is the unofficial start of summer; beaches open, some of us think of auto racing, and we hope for suitable weather for a barbecue. Memorial Day is upon us, and its national observance is 150 years old this year, the holiday Americans once called Decoration Day. The veterans’ group known as the Grand Army...

The post Observing Memorial Day as “Decoration Day” appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

The James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings in the Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections is a particularly lovely survey of etchings by various artists depicting the city between 1910 and 1935. Boyd donated the collection to the New-York Historical Society in honor of his wife, Agnes Boyd, in 1935, and continued to...

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

An earlier post introduced readers to a sampling of artwork from the James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings. Today’s post highlights works by William C. McNulty, an American painter, illustrator, etcher and art instructor whose work is part of the Boyd Collection. McNulty was born in Ogden, Utah in 1884. He began his career as  an editorial...

The post Selections from the James Boyd Collection of New York City Etchings, part 2 appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

As a present of sorts, in honor of what would have been his 160th birthday, here are some sheet music covers depicting Theodore Roosevelt, who was born in Manhattan, at 28 East 20th Street, on October 27, 1858. Probably no American president has gazed out from more sheet music covers than TR, whose rough-riding exploits and...

The post Happy Birthday, Teddy Roosevelt! appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Modern library conservation was born in the aftermath of a catastrophic flood in Florence, Italy on November 4, 1966. Water from the Arno River devastated the collections of the National Central Library of Florence. An international team of bookbinders and restorers was assembled to save what they could; however in many cases the damage was irreversible. Many lessons were...

The post Lab Notes: The Florence Flood and the emergence of library conservation appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

This Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, a war that remains etched in the collective memory for the physical and psychological toll wrought on those who lived through it. With that in mind, it seems fitting to mark this occasion through the words of a soldier who...

The post “The Good Lord protected me”: A soldier’s letter on the Meuse-Argonne Offensive 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.

Given its links to Massachusetts, it may come as a surprise to many that the earliest surviving text of “Christian Charitie. A Modell hereof” (more commonly called “A Model of Christian Charity”) resides in New York.  A lay sermon attributed to the Puritan John Winthrop, the once unheralded manuscript came to the New-York Historical Society from Francis...

The post John Winthrop’s “City upon a hill” Sermon and an “Erasure of Collective Memory” appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

Time Executive Editor J. Dana Tasker handled the retention or disposition of magazine cover art from around 1945 to 1953. While Time only acquired the first publication rights from the artists when commissioning a cover, Time frequently purchased and sent as a gift, or presented, the cover art to either the subject or a related...

The post What To Do With These TIME Cover Originals? 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

George B. Post (1837-1913), an American architect trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, is perhaps best known for his New York City landmark buildings, including the New York Stock Exchange, City College, and the Brooklyn Historical Society. After working as a draftsman for Richard Morris Hunt, Post opened his first architectural firm in New York City...

The post Lab Notes: Conserving a George B. Post Presentation Drawing appeared first on New-York Historical Society.

More than nine million active duty and retired military members and their families, including two million children, receive benefits from TRICARE, the military’s health care program. TRICARE offers health maintenance organization (HMO) and preferred provider organization (PPO) options.