New-York Historical Society

This post is by Anne Boissonnault, Archives Intern August 2nd marks a particularly lofty day in New York’s history of aeronautics. On that date in 1819, Louis Charles Guillé ascended in a balloon full of hydrogen gas over Vauxhall Gardens in Manhattan (a pleasure garden and theater near present day Astor Place) and descended using a parachute….

This post was written by Marybeth Kavanagh, Reference Archivist On July 26, 1788 New York, by a vote of 30-27, became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution. The New York Ratifying Convention, having approved the Constitution, also voted unanimously to prepare a circular letter to the other states, asking them to support a second general…

This post is by Elizabeth Vitek, Cataloger, American Historical Manuscript Collection The process of becoming a naturalized citizen in America is older than the United States itself. Before the United States was an independent nation, a person of foreign nationality had to become a naturalized citizen of the American colonies through the British Supreme Court. On April…

This post is by Melanie Rinehart, Assistant Archivist, Time Inc. Archive. LIFE Magazine was launched on November 23, 1936, for readers “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events.” The subject matter focused on both political and cultural events, and while the photographers captured iconic or scandalous photographs, it was rare that they…

This post is by Sara Belasco, Enhanced Conservation Work Experience Assistant (ECWE) With the meteoric rise of Hamilton: An American Musical, interest in the historical figures depicted in the show has skyrocketed. This pamphlet–Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States* (New York: Printed for John Lang by…

This post is by Ted O’Reilly, Curator & Head of the Manuscript Department Nearly four hundred years ago, in the winter of 1648, a man named Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert drowned in the frigid Hudson River. Bogaert had fallen through the ice while pursued by soldiers from Albany’s Fort Orange. He had arrived in the New…

This post is by Tammy Kiter, Manuscript Reference Librarian. The pursuit of a vegetarian lifestyle is certainly not a new concept. On the contrary, ancient civilizations in India, Asia, Southern Europe and Egypt explored meat-free diets long before the veggie burger was invented. Throughout the Age of Enlightenment and spanning into the early 19th century, England…

This post is by Amanda Bellows, Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellow. During the nineteenth century, literature became increasingly accessible to Americans thanks to rising literacy rates, decreasing production costs, and advancements in print and distribution technologies. In 1871, Appleton’s Journal of Literature pronounced that recreational reading had become “the most facile distraction, the most available…

Iceland is a nation rich in both history and culture but it’s unlikely to rank very highly among nations you’d expect to find ordering Steinway pianos in the 1940s. Yet it’s curiously well-represented in two account books from the Historical Society’s collections kept by longtime Steinway employee Ralph Tapp. In one example,  Asta Helgadotter [sic] of the Icelandic consulate…