This week’s guest blogger is N-YHS Bernard and Irene Schwartz Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Lauren Santangelo. If you’re interested in learning more about New York women’s history, stay tuned! In early 2017, the New-York Historical Society will be unveiling the Center for the Study of Women’s History, including a permanent gallery space devoted exclusively to local herstory.  Five thousand Japanese lanterns…

Jordan Wouk is this week’s guest blogger. He’s one of our dedicated volunteers who has worked three years as a Museum docent here at N-YHS. While leading tours of exhibitions, Jordan developed a keen interested in the adoptive American, the Marquis de Lafayette. In his post, he explores Lafayette’s ties to both New York and…

This week’s post is by returning guest blogger, Chennie Huang. By day, she’s a communications associate here at N-YHS. By night, she’s a graduate student studying art history at CUNY, concentrating in European and Asian art. This week, she explores the artists who inspired legendary cartoonist, Al Hirschfeld. Al Hirscheld’s artistic career as a caricaturist…

Did you know that some Brooklynites fought for both sides during the American Revolution? When revolutionary rhetoric adopted an anti-slavery tone, Kings County residents renounced the “Glorious Cause” and sided the British in hopes of preserving their forced labor system. This week New-York Historical’s Bernard and Irene Schwartz Fellow Chris Minty is our guest blogger. In his…

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…

This post was written by Chennie Huang Traditionally, Chinese New Year (known as “Lunar New Year” in other Asian countries) is celebrated during the second new moon after the winter solstice.  This year Chinese New Year is on February 19, beginning the Year of the Sheep. Going by the lunar calendar, each month begins on the…

  At 2pm on May 23, 1914, a group of men wearing cocked hats, white wigs, and knee-breeches, emerged from the Fraunces Tavern, walked slowly up Broad Street, and then turned down Wall Street towards the river, accompanied by the steady beat of a Continental drum corps.  “Had George Washington’s statue on the steps of…

This post is brought to us by Laurel Daen, a 2014 Patricia D. and John Klingenstein Fellow. For more information on our fellowship programs, click here. In 1836, William Woolley, a cabinetmaker from New York City, won a Silver Medal from the American Institute for his “bedstead for invalids.” As the editors of the Mechanic’s…

What does smallpox have to do with American history? According to David Rosner, Ph.D., Co-Director, Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University, advisor to the exhibition BE SURE! BE SAFE! GET VACCINATED! Smallpox, Vaccination and Civil Liberties in New York, everything. In this three-part series, written by Rosner, we’ll take a look at…