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…

On January 13, 2021, President Donald Trump was impeached for an unprecedented second time by the House of Representatives in the wake of the January 6 attack on the Capitol by a violent mob of his supporters. What does history have to teach us about this extraordinary moment in American politics? Below are a selection…

All of us can recall playing “follow the leader” as children. The notion of a leader exists in every society; it is an intrinsic human characteristic fundamental to group survival. Western cultures often assume that the leader is the most powerful individual at the head of a society. Western culture also teaches people to recognize…

Stephen Somerstein was a 24-year-old student at the City College of New York’s night school and picture editor of the student newspaper when he photographed some of the most iconic images of the civil rights movement. With his five cameras in tow, he traveled by bus to Alabama in 1965 to document the Selma to…

A treasured artwork is on view again in the Museum. One of the signature works in the New-York Historical collection, Gayë́twahgeh is a striking oil-on-canvas portrait by F. Bartoli of the famed Seneca chief—who was also known as Cornplanter—that was painted in 1796. It is thought to commemorate his 1786 meeting with the U.S. Congress…

New-York Historical honors the life and legacy of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Back in 2014, she joined us for an intimate conversation about the challenges and key moments of her accomplished career—from her central role in and strategy for gender discrimination law suits to her tenure as one of the…

Are you looking for some historical perspective as the election season heat up? Our Public Programs have you covered. Enjoy two recordings of past programs below. In the first, author David Levering Lewis and historian David Nasaw discuss Wendell Willkie, a Midwestern businessman–turned–Republican politician, who fought for desegregation, workers’ rights, and small government in his 1940 bid for president. In the second,…

New-York Historical reopens indoors on Friday, Sept. 11, and visitors will have a chance to view Colonists, Citizens, Constitutions: Creating the American Republic, an exploration of America’s long history of constitutional and civic engagement featuring over 40 books and documents from the collection of Dorothy T. Goldman. Our Public Programs series has often delved into…

Last February, New-York Historical celebrated the opening of Bill Graham and the Rock & Roll Revolution with a public program that dove into the lasting impact of one of Graham’s most famous achievements: the Fillmore East in New York City. Robert Greenfield, the coauthor of Bill Graham Presents, joined us, along with a panel of Graham’s contemporaries and colleagues to talk…