Behind The Scenes

This week we sat down with New-York Historical’s Senior Director of Resources and Programs Jean Ashton to discuss her book, AIDS in New York: The First Five Years. The book shares its name with the 2013 N-HYS exhibition that Ashton curated. To learn more about the epidemic in NYC, check out our online exhibition. How…

Independent scholar Claire Bellerjeau made a miraculous discovery in the New-York Historical Society’s collections; she uncovered an unpublished poem likely written by Jupiter Hammon, the first published African American author in America. Hammon, who lived his entire life as an enslaved person, had four poems and three essays published in his lifetime. This sixth poem…

Currently on display at New-York Historical is the final installment of the three-year series featuring all of John James Audubon’s original watercolor models for The Birds of America. Because of their fragility, this is your last chance to catch these stunning works. So don’t miss out—come see Audubon’s Aviary: The Final Flight and perch with…

Did you know that more than twice as many books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than weeks have passed since his death almost 150 years ago? With Passover beginning at sundown, we’re honoring Lincoln’s legacy by exploring an untold aspect of his personal life and political career: his friendships with Jews. During his tenure…

To celebrate the opening of our newest special installation Nature Illuminated: A Tiffany Gallery Preview, the exhibition’s curator who is also the Curator of Decorative Arts here at New-York Historical, Margaret K. Hofer, has signed on as this week’s guest blogger. Her post continues this month’s theme of New York women’s history and illuminates the…

“Write right from left to the right as you see it spelled here.” Did you print your answer? If so, you got it wrong—it should have been written in cursive. “Spell backwards, forwards.” Did you include a comma? Wrong. Did you omit the comma? That’s wrong, too. These are only two of the 30 questions…

To celebrate the upcoming opening of our groundbreaking exhibition, Lincoln and the Jews on March 20, Harold Holzer, the Roger Hertog Fellow at the New-York Historical Society and Chief Historian to the exhibition, has signed on as this week’s guest blogger. In his post, he highlights the show and the exciting history it illuminates. So…

To kick-off our celebration of Women’s Herstory Month, let’s travel back to the groovy days of 1970. Pervasive inequality pushed the Second-wave Feminist Movement forward into the next decade. Its Founding Mothers, including Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem established the National Organization for Women (NOW), a centralized force for change. NOW sponsored the Women’s Strike…

Patron saint of the environmentalist movement and celebrated ornithologist, John James Audubon was the first to sound the alarm. He recognized in the early 1800s that many avian species and their habitats were threated. Almost 200 years later, many of the feathered subjects are endangered or extinct. To see 42 of his original breathtaking watercolors…