The Beekman Family Coach is one of the New-York Historical Society’s most unique objects. It is also one of only three 18th-century carriages used in colonial North America that is known to survive in original condition. A curatorial intern at the Museum, I’m a Ph.D. candidate in American & New England studies at Boston University,…

New-York Historical’s favorite set of wheels is back in the Museum. The Beekman Family Coach, a treasured part of our collection since 1911, has been undergoing a meticulous restoration at the B.R. Howard Conservation Studio in Pennsylvania since the fall of 2020 thanks to a Federal Save America’s Treasures grant. After a delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic,…

Americans across the country have many traditions when it comes to celebrating Independence Day. But it’s possible that none are as distinctive as Cherry Grove’s. Every year on July 4, residents and visitors from the Fire Island hamlet and historically LGBTQ beach town commemorate the holiday by dressing up in drag and catching a ferry…

New-York Historical’s current exhibition Dreaming Together interweaves historical American with contemporary Asian and Asian diasporic art to explore the possibilities unleashed when people, cultures, and institutions dream in tandem. These themes of cooperation, creativity, and mutual inspiration extend even to the exhibition’s catalogue, an elegant tome with an almost entirely blank, clothbound hardcover that’s actually…

Museum curators who document current events—like we do at the New-York Historical Society through our History Responds collecting initiative—experience the moment just like everyone else. And, when it comes to traumatic events like the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the COVID-19 pandemic, we sometimes face the very challenges that we’re describing through the items we collect. The past…

New-York Historical’s exhibition So Ready for Laughter: Bob Hope and World War II explores the legendary comedian’s work entertaining the troops and lifting spirits during the darkest days of the 1940s. But for decades, Hope was also known for another job: Hollywood’s consummate master of ceremonies. Starting in 1940, Hope hosted the Academy Awards a…

On the morning of December 14, 2020, Sandra Lindsay made history. The director of critical care nursing at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Lindsay, 52, sat down in front of TV cameras and the media and became the first person in the United States to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Like many across New York State…

Visitors to Meet the Presidents and the Oval Office will indeed get a chance to meet every president in American history—in 3-inch toy form. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a play set that features an expansive semi-circle of commanding—and collectible—plastic figures around a model White House. The semi-circle was recently expanded when…

Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: The Story of a Presidential MasterpieceRecorded Feb. 12, 2020 Shortly before lockdown, in February 2020, Abraham Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer joined us in our Robert H. Smith Auditorium and surveyed the 16th president’s majestic second “malice toward none” inaugural address. At the time, the speech generated entirely partisan responses—and even an assassination…