American Antiquarian Society

Did not make the cut for the '24 Olympic team 🌳🤿🪜🤺🤸🏻‍♀️🪁🐝
Now that the Paris Olympic Games have come to an end, we are back to attempting our own athletic feats and dreaming of 2028. Our chief conservator spotted this German language primer which recently came across her desk. The 1792 imprint—Ein Wohl Eingerichtetes deutsches ABC—was printed in Germantown, Pennsylvania and shows off a (pretty intense) engraved frontispiece scene. We’re not quite sure what’s going on in this speller, but [lower left b] is giving some accurate Monday vibes.

Asleep at the wheel over here. Somehow we missed both Book Lovers Day and international Cat Day. 😅 To make up for the oversight, we present a book loving cat 🐈📕
This hand colored lithograph published by popular lithographer Currier & Ives in 1877 is called “Kittie’s Lesson” We can’t really tell from the kitten’s face if he *likes* learning the alphabet, but maybe that side eye is just for a few. 👀

This diary, written by ten-year-old Harriet “Hattie” Foster Hawes from Derby Line, Vermont is another item used by participants this week. 📔 Hattie writes about everyday things—weather, visits from friends and cousins and social events. But she also comments on the Civil War, including the fall of Richmond and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It is another item that teachers will be working with in the summer institute this week.

Feeling blue? 🟦 Hopefully this item from one of the Historic Children’s Voices seminar tables will brighten your day with its eight pages of comic rhymes! Today’s offering by James Hayden Wells (1843-1915), was printed between 1850-6, Old p***y, grave p***y 🐱. Wells printed this miniature book between the ages of 7 and 13. Our copy remains uncut, but our photographer captured the inside pages and text!

Today’s offerings from the summer institute include a gorgeous copy of Cinderella: Pantomime Toy Books (New York: McLoughlin Bro’s, 1882)—which are chromolithographed plates making a series of metamorphic pictures 👸🏼👠.

We also have out for consideration, a stunning cover and (unfortunate) mezzotint and engraving of a dead bird from The Pet Annual (NY: Leavitt and Allen) from 1856.

We also had out an offering by juvenile-author Frank H. Chamberlain: The Gypsy’s Plot or The Girl Spy (Marietta, Ohio) from 1877. The conundrum on the crinoline here is quite funny 👗 👣

This week we are welcoming teachers from around the country who will join us for a 5-day summer institute for educators. The participants, from social studies and language arts, will be working with leader Karen Sánchez-Eppler and AAS curators and staff. Over the course of the week, these educators will consider the value of materials to meet history and language arts curricular objectives.

This Monday through Friday, we will showcase select items from the workshop tables on social media to extend the thought and conversation outside antiquarian hall!

Today’s items are from the Penmanship manuscript collection, which will be heavily used this week. Many of these copy books—undated, others from 1762 through 1856—represent the work of students from the Northeast.

Unmentionables. 🤭🩲
Today is national underwear day! We tried to find lots of examples from the collection, but gave up after a brief search. 🥁
We do have this advertisement and price list to share from D.C. Hall & Co., manufactures of Smith’s perforated buckskin underwear (for ladies and gentlemen!) Their office and warerooms were on Leonard Street in New York. This folded card dates from ca. 1875.

Pretty sure those are only allowed on the beach in the offseason there, kids. 🚫🫏
Anyone else getting ready for a summer beach trip? ⛱️ (with or without a donkey?)
This image—“An Exciting Donkey-Ride at the Seashore”—is taken from this collection of fairy tales and poems called Snow White and Red Rose published by the McLoughlin brothers in 1899.
Keep it exciting! Don’t forget your bucket and shovel! 🪣

Happy International Day of Friendship! 👯
This drawing in Hattie E. Kruschke's "Leaves of Affection" album was created by a friend who writes "Ever Remember, Jennie" under the beautiful bouquet. Similar to other 19th century friendship albums, Hattie's is filled with quotes and signatures left by her friends. How will you celebrate your friends today? 💐

Paris Games kickoff today! We’re looking forward to Worcester’s own Stephen Nedoroscik representing the United States—he earned a spot on the men’s U.S. Olympic gymnastics team🤸🏻‍♂️. To edge him towards gold on the pommel horse 🐴, we present an ancestor of the horse from Roper's Gymnasium by Childs & Inman's Press. This detail of the 1830s advertisement for the gymnasium at 247 Market Street in Philadelphia shows visitors who have come to watch the fencing and exercises being performed on the horse, balance bars, trapeze, and ropes! Best of luck athletes (and spectators! 🍿)

Yesterday’s news? 🥱 Today’s news from 233 years ago? 😎

AAS is in the middle of a digitization project where we are photographing over two-hundred recently acquired issues of the the Potowmac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser from Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The project will be complete by the end of summer.

Our favorite item is an ad for a Printer’s apprentice. Wonder if they’re still looking to fill the position? 🤔 Runner up is for fan making 🪭!

Join us virtually or in person on Tuesday, July 30, at 7pm, to hear AAS member and horologist Bob Frishman talk about his new book being released this month "Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman 1730-1803."
Click here to register https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9816

This year's conservation intern, Min, has been tackling many projects this summer under the direction of our chief conservator. Here, she is seen working on issues of the first newspaper published in West Virginia, the Potowmac Guardian. She washed the issues and is seen here re-sizing the paper to conserve and maintain the durability of the paper.

Breaking that fourth wall, Eliza? 👀✨

This image is from The History and Adventures of Little Eliza, a children's book of poetry and illustrations. The 8-page book was published and engraved by William Charles in Philadelphia in 1814.

You read it, didn’t you? 😅

And now find yourself wanting a 🥁 or 🦩🦔 or 🎭 ? They sound like good deals—we admire Winder’s humor and hope he was able to land a sale!

This advertisement in the back of the Warsaw amateur 1877 directory was written by fifteen-year-old Tom Woods Winder (1862-1933) who became a professional newspaperman and editor working in Buffalo, Hammond, Ind. and Chicago. He also cycled 🚴🏼‍♂️ around the country in 1895.

Text reads: “Don't read this, if you value your money; for if you do read it, you will be sure and send for some of the following articles: One square drum, cost eight dollars: will sell for six dollars. One parlor croquet set, cost two dollars will sell for dollar and fifty cents. Characters for an amateur theater: play, scenery, and directions for making stage all complete, price one dollar. Address, Tom W. Winder, Lock Box 20. Warsaw, Indiana.” This item is part of the Historic Children’s Voices project.

Join us Monday, July 15, in person or virtually at 7pm for a lecture by Joseph Rezek and co-sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of America.

Drawn from his book-in-progress, The Racialization of Print, Joseph Rezek traces the historical emergence of the idea that a single printed book, by virtue of its author’s racial identity, might reveal profound truths about an entire race of people. During his talk, Rezek will argue that the shock of the Haitian Revolution and the international circulation of a Black Haitian print culture intensified the association of book publication with racial knowledge. https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9400

Happy Independence Day! The Society is closed today in observance of the holiday.

This 1815 invitation is for an independence ball held in Hartland, Vermont, and is filled out to Daniel Denison, a Hartland farmer who would’ve been about 21 at the time of this ball. We love that the invitation was printed on a recycled playing card! We hope you have a ball this Fourth of July! 🇺🇸💃🏼🕺🏼

At first we thought this woman wasn’t happy to have her picture taken. But we sense a smug half smile that says “look how well my hydrangeas are doing this summer.” We love how they are draped over her shoulder. Are your hydrangeas doing as well as ours are this year? We cannot get over how good they look this year!
This cabinet card of an unknown woman was taken by Margaret E. Herrin, The Dalles, Oregon, 1890s.

This week is National Pollinator Week! 🐝🦋🐦 These butterfly album cards are from a recently acquired album featuring various sets of album cards published by L. Prang & Co. between 1862 and 1868. Album cards like these were the same size as carte de visite photographs and would often be placed in photo albums as pretty filler or used in scrapbooking.

🌝 Ready for this month’s (Strawberry 🍓!) full moon? We are! This lithograph, a “Telescopic view of the full moon” was a book illustration by D.W. Kellogg & Co. and produced around 1838. It has labeled features including “maria” and valleys and mountains.
Happy (hopefully clear) viewing this weekend! 🔭

Looking for something fun to do next Wednesday evening? Come make a booklet with our chief conservator and chat with our curators about materials in our collections made by children in the 19th century!
The event is free and open to all ages. Registration is required if you plan on making a booklet, and we ask that you register by Monday. We look forward to seeing you there!

https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9079

The Society will be closed today, June 19, in observance of Juneteenth.

“American Declaration of Independence Illustrated” lithograph by L. Prang & Co., 1861, calling for the emancipation of slavery.

It’s finally here! Our (local!) last day of school 🥳! Although we’re probably not as excited as Marion “Minnie” Boyd Allen was in the first lines of her 1875 diary, “Went to school in forenoon for the last time. Vacation! Vacation!!”

(We’re so happy to see those last day of school vibes are timeless. 😎)

The diary is now part of our Historic Children’s Voices web resource. This includes digitized versions of child-authored newspapers and diaries. Finding yourself with summer downtime? Check out some of the items which are accessible on our site (and feature more than 15,000 pages of content). https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9362

🎨 from Marion Boyd Allen’s (1862-1941) diary from 1875-76. In adulthood, Marion would go on to enter the art school of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts where she studied with Edmund Charles Tarbell and Frank Benson. She became a prominent painter. Link to her diary: https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9105

Mark your calendars! Chat with a Curator is back, Wednesday, June 26, 2024, from 5 to 6:30pm. Registration is required if you would like to try binding your own booklet! https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9079

Get up close to letters, diaries, newspapers, and books that children wrote and produced in the nineteenth century. Chat with AAS curators about these materials and hear stories about how imaginative young writers recorded their daily lives, wrote stories and poetry, expressed their beliefs, and commented on serious issues of their time. Then try your hand at binding your own booklet or diary with the help of a conservator. This program is held in conjunction with the Historic Children’s Voices project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. As a result of this project, hundreds of scanned materials written and created by children in the 1800s are now freely available on the AAS website.

Join us virtually or in person Tuesday, June 18, 2024, at 7pm, as poet Danielle Legros Georges speaks about her recent book, Black Women Poets Re-Imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters (2023). Co-edited with Artress Bethany White, this new collection celebrates the 250th anniversary of Phillis Wheatley Peters’ Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) through the voices of twenty Black female poets. This reimagining of writing by America’s first Black poet and iconic literary ancestor for a new generation helps twenty-first century audiences gain new perspectives.
https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9399

Have you wanted to take a tour of Antiquarian Hall, but Wednesday afternoons don't work for you? We have started adding occasional evening tours! Our next evening tour will be Tuesday, June 18, at 5:45 pm, just before our public program "Wheatley at 250: Black Women Poets Re-Imagine the Verse of Phillis Wheatley Peters." To take advantage of this tour, registration is required and can be done here https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9830

For more information about the program, click here https://www.americanantiquarian.org/node/9399

AAS is pleased to be supporting the 2024 Dublin Seminar to be held at Historic Deerfield on June 28 & 29. This year’s seminar is “Into the Woods: New England Forests in Fact and Imagination.” Click the link to register and learn more https://www.historic-deerfield.org/events/dublin-seminar-2024/