The New-York Historical Society Museum wants a wedding cake topper. Not just any cake topper: a same-sex version with two men or two women that speaks to the titanic shift in American culture that happened when gay marriage was legalized at the federal level in 2015. So if we’re so eager, why not just buy…

As October 31 draws near, ghosts appear in New York windows, and cobwebs creep over city bushes. Crisp leaves heap in piles along sidewalks where wrinkled gourds line up to watch crunchy commutes. All across the state New Yorkers still “inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative, to dream dreams,…

Dear Ms. Markle, We have learned that you will soon be cramming (or as they say in the UK, “swotting”) for the British citizenship test, an exam that is typically flunked by one-third to one-half of all applicants. To pass the test, you will have to correctly answer 75 percent of 24 questions, like How…

On December 6, 2017, the New-York Historical Society hosted a lecture featuring distinguished historian Stephen Kotkin. Stephen Kotkin, author of the book Stalin: Waiting For Hitler, 1929-1941, explored Joseph Stalin’s forced industrialization of the Soviet Union and assessed his relationship with Hitler’s Nazi Germany during World War II.  When Kotkin took the stage, he opened…

Written by Ina Bort Our last post explored the biography of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, the doyenne-turned-activist we believe commissioned this plate’s manufacture. Today we explore the first of two likely scenarios where this and similar plates may have been used: The suffrage conferences Alva organized at Marble House, her Newport estate, in 1909 and 1914….

written by Marci Reaven, Vice President for History Exhibitions In April 1789, when George Washington swore to uphold the Constitution as the first president of the United States, only 11 of the 13 states had voted to join the new union. North Carolina did not ratify the Constitution until that fall, and it took until the…

by Ted O’Reilly, Curator & Head of the Manuscript Department As part of the New-York Historical Society’s Presidency Project, the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library is displaying a selection of documents highlighting the earliest moments of the American presidency. Included are a leaf from the notes of Rufus King at the Constitutional Convention (a very rare…

Written by Marci Reaven, Vice President of History Exhibits With presidential inaugurations in mind, we recently mounted a display of rare artifacts from the first inauguration—George Washington’s. You can see them as soon as you enter the museum. One of the objects is a section of the wrought-iron balustrade, or railing, that adorned the new capitol…

Become a part of history! We’re collecting signs, posters, banners, sashes, buttons, flyers, and other ephemera–and the stories behind them–from the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., and any recent nationwide protests, including the women’s marches in January 2017. Do you have something you’d like to donate to our permanent collection? Contact our curatorial team at responses@nyhistory.org. Please…