John Anderson, Sr. (1733-1798) had barely published a year’s worth of his paper, The Constitutional Gazette, before he earned the title of “the rebel printer” —effectively opposing James Rivington’s loyalist paper, The Royal Gazette. His reputation was most likely supplemented by printing New York’s first edition of Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Anderson was a…

Since its completion in 1818, John Trumbull’s “Signing of the Declaration of Independence” remains one of the most recognizable paintings among Americans. Commissioned by Congress with the intent of housing it in the United States Capitol, Trumbull took several creative liberties to represent one of the most significant events of the American Revolution and to…

Hello, I’m Alec Ferretti, and I recently interned with the Archival Processing Unit at the New-York Historical Society. I’m a professional genealogist by day and a grad student at NYU in their Archives program by night. I set aside every Monday of the spring semester to work on processing collections here in the N-YHS manuscripts division. On…

The American Historical Manuscript Collection (AHMC) cataloging project, supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, wrapped up on January 5, 2018. Since June 2014, when the project began, our catalogers have created searchable, electronic records for thousands of small manuscript collections and single items, racking up some impressive totals: Collections cataloged:…

This post was written by Matthew Murphy, Head of Cataloging and Metadata. In honor of Black History Month, the American Historical Manuscript Collection staff would like to share an item that really resonated with us. It is a note, signed by Booker T. Washington, and dated November 15, 1906. In the note, Washington states “The strongest and…

This post was written by Megan Cherry, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow for 2016-2017. New Year’s comes with its own unique traditions, especially in New York. Approximately a million people will be gathering in Times Square this New Year’s Eve to watch the ball drop – a New York tradition since 1907. But one New…

The Story . . . While processing the records of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, New York Commandery, we came across a poignant relic of the Civil War: a note passed between the lines at the Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the nation….

This post was written by Christine Calvo, American Historical Manuscript Collection Processing Assistant. “I came to a dead halt, — It was like translation to another planet — all the mountains, I had ever seen at such close range were barely wooded hills by comparison. I’m lost for adjectives that are at all comprehensive.” The…

This post was written by Matthew Murphy, Head of Cataloging and Metadata One of the jewels of our American Historical Manuscript Collection (which is a “collection of collections” consisting of 12,000 small and unique manuscript collections) is the Frederick Douglass letters, which consists of ten letters sent and received by Frederick Douglass between 1851 and 1894. In…