Yikes! This aggressive-looking machine is patented under the name “Lightning” and is cold to the touch.  Because it’s made from cast iron, when you lift it, its weight drags your whole body down and turns your arm to pudding. It has four gears; each is a different size, and each is necessary. When activated, these…

Revolutionary War hero, treasury secretary, founder of the Bank of New York, architect of America’s financial system—Alexander Hamilton’s accomplishments are too numerous to list. In his lifetime of just 47 years, Hamilton helped secure America’s freedom and shaped the contours of the young republic in its earliest days. The Bank of New York (now BNY…

As October 31 draws near, ghosts appear in New York windows, and cobwebs creep over city bushes. Crisp leaves heap in piles along sidewalks where wrinkled gourds line up to watch crunchy commutes. All across the state New Yorkers still “inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams,…

This fall, we opened a powerful new exhibition Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow, which explores the struggle for full citizenship and racial equality that unfolded in the 50 years after the Civil War, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Fourteenth Amendment. On September 7, to open the exhibition, we welcomed Dr. Brenda…

We are building a research railroad! In 2017 the New-York Historical Society received a special grant to begin the enormous task of cataloging the Jerni Collection in an effort share its wonders with the greater public. These funds come from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Founded in 1996, IMLS serves as an…

This spring, the Tech Commons @ N-YHS welcomed our second cohort of Tech Scholars. Young women grades 9-12 from four of the five boroughs came every day for a week to the Tech Commons to explore the intersections of women’s history and web development. The group was tasked with building websites to share not only…

Dear Ms. Markle, We have learned that you will soon be cramming (or as they say in the UK, “swotting”) for the British citizenship test, an exam that is typically flunked by one-third to one-half of all applicants. To pass the test, you will have to correctly answer 75 percent of 24 questions, like How…

Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy on June 6, 1968, our exhibition Rebel Spirits: Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. showcases photographs and artifacts honoring these visionary leaders who irrevocably changed the United States. Sixty images taken by some of the…

One of the highlights of our North Gallery in our 4th-floor Luce Center, which reopened last April, is the magnificent painting Return of the 69th (Irish) Regiment, N.Y.S.M. from the Seat of War, painted by Louis Lang (1812-1893) in 1862. The painting depicts the regiment marching off the ship and into the Battery in Lower Manhattan, welcomed by…