This post is by Ted O’Reilly, Curator & Head of the Manuscript Department William Sulzer is now remembered, if at all, for being the only New York governor to have been impeached. Despite his nickname, “Plain Bill” was a bit more interesting, especially if you believe a rambling typescript autobiography that survives in his papers. Regardless,…

This post (the first of two) is by Sarah Levy, an intern at the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, who is compiling a bibliography of Judaica printed in America from the early colonial period until the mid 1800s. The first Jewish prayer book to be published in North America was also the first ever complete Jewish prayer…

This post is by Christine Calvo, AHMC Cataloger. The American Historical Manuscript Collection (AHMC) includes a folder of material from Lillian Jaffe Salt’s days at the Hebrew Technical School for Girls during the first half of the twentieth century. Lillian (originally Leiba) Jaffe Salt was born in 1905 near Glasmonka, Russia, and originally a citizen of Latvia….

This post is by Ted O’Reilly, Curator & Head of the Manuscript Department While watching his dream of establishing a university become reality, Thomas Jefferson put pen to paper assembling estimates of both university income and expenditures for 1825-1827. The surviving document contains many elements of interest (e.g. salaries of professors, the military instructor and librarian, as well as…

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…