Mahlon Day was a Quaker, publisher of children’s books, printer, and bookseller who resided in New York City. He was born in Morristown, New Jersey on August 27, 1790. By the age of 26, he owned a printing shop at 35 Beaver Street. Mahlon Day was one of two printers who dominated the New York…

Travel diaries have long been a popular form of self-expression, and can provide us with unique perspectives on cities in the past. The New-York Historical Society holds a number of these diaries within our manuscript collections, with several dating back to the 18th century. Mabel Newton Betticher is one diarist whose collection exists in our holdings. Between…

As preservationists push to landmark 99 Ryerson Street, the only surviving Brooklyn residence of poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the question arises what, if anything, the New-York Historical Society Library holds on the building or the man, whose birthday is May 31st. Sadly, we haven’t got a whole lot on the building. There are insurance maps, which show the…

The New-York Historical Society Library has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to catalog titles from 1600 to 1801 in the library’s rare book collection. As part of this project, we will be blogging monthly about noteworthy finds. We’re cataloging books in Latin, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, English; some cover astronomy,…

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…

This post was written by Luis Rodriguez, Library Collections Technician. Imagine a moment in Harlem in 1939. It’s inside the Community Center of the International Workers Order on West 125th Street, where the Harlem Suitcase Theater is putting on bare-bones experimental “proletariat” theatrical productions. The audience has left after a performance of Don’t You Want to…