Most Christian and Jewish Americans, reading about Christ’s resurrection or the Jewish exodus from Egypt during the upcoming Easter and Passover holidays, will not consider the Bible to be an American book. And yet, the Bible was our first American book; its earliest printings, translations, and interpretations reflected the experiences of the first Europeans to…

A factory owner’s wife ignites a scandalous love affair with a Chinese worker in Karen Shepard’s newest novel, The Celestials. A bi-racial love child follows. In conjunction with the New-York Historical Society’s ongoing exhibition Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion, we sat down with Chinese-American author Karen Shepard who teaches writing and literature at Williams College to discuss her work…

Our new exhibition Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion focuses much on the question of immigration in America: who is allowed, who isn’t, how many people should come, and why. These issues are extremely apparent in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion act of 1882, which barred Chinese immigration into America, and required that all Chinese entering or…

The first thing to remember about movie star Anna May Wong is that she was an American. She was born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905 in Los Angeles, with Cantonese American family that had lived in America since at least 1855. Her father owned a laundry shop, and as the film industry began to move west,…

At the New-York Historical Society, we mount exhibitions that directly connect American history and art to you, our visitors. This summer, we will present Madeline in New York: The Art of Ludwig Bemelmans to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the beloved schoolgirl and the iconic illustration and writing of her creator. The story of Madeline‘s author Ludwig Bemelmans mirrors that…

On April 17, 1907, Ellis Island had its busiest day ever, processing 11,747 individuals who just arrived to America. An average day had them processing about 5,000, so this must have overloaded them! According to the Ellis Island Foundation, “During this historic month [April 1907] of American immigration, the Port of New York received 197 ships…

Everyone knows that immigrants came through Ellis Island to settle in America, but where did they go before that? The answer is Castle Garden,  now known as the Castle Clinton National Monument, on the southern tip of Manhattan. Originally a fort, Castle Garden was constructed between 1808 and 1811, and at that time wasn’t even connected…

When Memorial Day was first celebrated, America was learning to be America again. Over 600,000 soldiers had fallen over four years, fighting for the Union and the Confederacy, and the wounds had not yet healed. David Blight, author of Race and Reunion, wrote about the early memorials just after the Civil War in The New York…

Natural-born citizens can learn a lot from a naturalization ceremony. We can remember there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, a fact those vying for citizenship must memorize. We can brush up on the words to the national anthem. We can see just how excitedly someone can wave a tiny American flag. But…