I Approve This Message, an exhibition about the emotional impact of political advertising in a landscape altered by the internet, was set to open at the New-York Historical Society this September. The COVID-19 lockdown halted those plans, but we want to share a few of the exhibition’s themes, particularly as we barrel towards our new…

On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln stood before a crowd at Cooper Union on 8th Street in New York City, attempting to convince a strongly Democratic city that he, a Republican, deserved the presidency. Until then he was thought of mostly as a country lawyer, but his speech at Cooper Union let New York Republicans…

America’s 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was born in Hyde Park, NY this day in 1882. Roosevelt  is greatly remembered for leading the US through a depression and WWII, and his wife Eleanor’s humanitarian efforts. However, he is also known as our only physically disabled president, and founder of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now…

Most people think of New York as the center of all that is liberal and progressive in America, with strong, Dutch-instilled values of tolerance permeating the culture. However, New York is also a place of business, and before the Civil War that meant it dealt heavily with the business of slavery. In December 1860, South…

  New York Magazine recently warned that the 2012 presidential election could be the ” most negative in the history of American politics.” Granted, negative messages have more ways of reaching the American public than ever, with internet and Television advertising. but negative campaigns are an unfortunate tradition of the American political scene. The New-York Historical…