Author Archives:
Croquet, an Olympic Sport?
It was in 1900, for the first and only time. The 1900 Olympics, held in Paris, were also the first which allowed women to compete (an Olympic tradition which has, happily, had a longer track record than croquet). According to Olympic games historian Bill Mallon, two women competed (with other men) in a croquet [...]
Davy Crockett Almanacs
This post was written by cataloger Catherine Falzone. As my colleagues and I work to catalog the thousands of almanacs held by N-YHS, thanks to a Hidden Collections Program grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), we have come across some unusual items that bear a closer look. Some of my favorite [...]
The Serious Side of Drinking: Political Toasts
Tippling is mainly a recreational sport today, but beer was an important source of nutrition in colonial New York. And alcohol also played a role in early American politics, through the time-honored ritual of drinking toasts. In 18th century America, nearly every public occasion ended with a score of ceremonial drinks and toasts. Verbatim transcripts [...]
Clarke and Rapuano, Landscape Architects
April — better known as the month of showers, Frederick Law Olmsted’s birthday, and Earth Day — has also been designated National Landscape Architect month. Aside from Olmsted, however, landscape architects continue to fly largely under the radar. A case in point: Clarke and Rapuano, a firm with enormous impact on New York City’s urban [...]
Mr. Mitchell’s Muscular Map
Post written by Eric Robinson It’s hard to believe, but a document with the imperious title A Map of the British and French Dominions in North America was the cartographic basis for our American republic. John Mitchell’s 1755 masterpiece provided the lens with which the founding generation negotiated independence and plotted westward settlement. Needless to [...]
Currier & Currier & Ives? a tribute to Charles Currier
To most people, Currier & Ives are locked together like love and marriage (in the song, at least) — as Frank Sinatra sings, “you can’t have one, you can’t have none, you can’t have one without the other.” In fact, though, Nathaniel Currier was a successful lithographer long before James Merritt Ives joined the business [...]
Blueprints, Then and Now
Written by Geraldine Granahan, Preservation Assistant for the McKim, Mead & White Architectural Record Collection. Recently the staff of the library and conservation department spent a fun afternoon in our conservation laboratory attending a workshop on the process of making cyanotypes, or as they are more commonly known — blueprints (so called because they contain [...]
Friggatriskaidekaphobes Need Not Apply
Written by Joseph Ditta, Reference Librarian Thirteenth Annual Report of the Thirteen Club, 1895 (cover) Happy Friday the Thirteenth! Are you cowering under the covers, hoping to escape the horrible tragedies that are doomed to hit you should you set foot out of bed? If you answered yes, we are sorry to say your friggatriskaidekaphobia [...]
