Though not yet recognized nationally, today is American Eagle Day, the anniversary of the eagle’s inclusion on the Great Seal of the United States on June 20, 1782. Despite also becoming our national emblem in 1789, for decades at the end of the last century the eagle was in dire circumstances. The effects of DDT…

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…

Generous members of the New-York Historical Society’s Library Committee made possible our recent acquisition of John Bachmann’s lithograph, View of Central Park, New York, printed around 1875. It joins the twenty-two other works by Bachmann in our Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections (click here to read more about them). Swiss born and trained in Paris,…

This post is by AHMC Cataloger Noa Kasman. The American Historical Manuscript Collection (AHMC) includes a folder of material related to poet, dramatist, and philosopher, Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805), better known as Friedrich Schiller. While cataloging the collection, I was surprised to learn that Schiller’s monument was the very first in Central Park. It…

Margot Gayle is synonymous with historic preservation. A leading figure in the movement which found its voice following the tragic loss of Pennsylvania Station in 1963, Gayle played a seminal role in the creation of New York’s Landmark Preservation Law two years later. For sixteen years she penned an architecture column in the Daily News while  helping to found the Victorian…

Most Americans view curling — reinstated as an Olympic medal event just 16 years ago , in 1998 — as a novel and peculiar sport.  Given its exotic status, not to mention the U.S. team’s dismal performance at Sochi, it may come as a surprise to learn that this ancient Scottish game also has a…

John Ledyard’s far from a household name in his own country even though he’s arguably the United States’ first explorer, and, had Catherine the Great not abruptly ended his circumnavigation of the globe in 1787-1788, could very well have achieved what Lewis & Clark accomplished fifteen years later. Ledyard also attended Dartmouth, participated in Cook’s Third…

Central and Prospect Park parks dominate New York City park history. While that’s somewhat understandable, it’s time smaller parks got some attention of their own. Despite New York’s long history, small, city-owned public parks didn’t really become a common feature until the waning years of the nineteenth century. It was then that waves of  immigration and…