This post is one in a quarterly series in which the New-York Historical Society highlights the collections for which detailed finding aids were published over the prior three months. All collections receive at least a summary description in our catalog, Bobcat. But many collections have such depth or are simply so large or complex that…

This Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, a war that remains etched in the collective memory for the physical and psychological toll wrought on those who lived through it. With that in mind, it seems fitting to mark this occasion through the words of a soldier who…

This post was written by Mariam Touba, Reference Librarian for Printed Collections What to do if you are a leader of a political party and you fear that your party’s presumptive nominee for the presidency thoroughly lacks the temperament for the office? If he is erratic, animated by “disgusting egotism,” “distempered jealousy,” and “ungovernable indiscretion”?…

This post was written by Julita Braxton, AHMC Cataloger. This Veterans Day, with a focus on an item from the American Historical Manuscript Collection, we have the privilege of seeing the Second World War through the eyes of one soldier: Charles Murray Foster of the 1st Battalion of the 114th Infantry Regiment, United States Army, deployed to…

This post is written by Joe Festa, Manuscript Reference Librarian. Mural artist Edwin Howland Blashfield, born in Brooklyn in 1848, is perhaps best known for adorning the dome of the Library of Congress Main Reading Room in Washington, DC. His work can be characterized by his formal European apprenticeship in the classical arts, which greatly…

This post was written by Tammy Kiter, Manuscript Reference Librarian June 6, 2014 marked the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The Allied Invasion of Normandy was the largest seaborne invasion in military history. Allied troops consisted of approximately 150,000 service members representing the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Norway and numerous other countries. This strategically…

At 5 a.m. on November 11, 1918, the United States and its allies concluded an armistice with Germany. Later that morning, at 11 a.m. French time, World War I hostilities came to an end after one concluding salvo. In America, the day became known as Armistice Day until Congress substituted “Veterans” in 1954 to expand…