To help support the city’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and to protect the health of our visitors and staff, New-York Historical is temporarily closing to the public as of Friday, March 13, at 6 pm through the end of the month. While you can’t drop by to see our Meet the Presidents exhibition in…

Although summer is winding downing, our public programs for August are heating up! Even if you missed our latest installment of The Big Quiz Thing, Broadway edition, you can still join in on the fun! Tonight and next week, we’re offering two inspiring programs that are free with Pay-as-you-wish Fridays. Both events celebrate an ongoing…

By day, Zhi hen Li is an Accountant here at the New-York Historical Society. But, by night, he’s a lion dancer. The Lion Dance is a Chinese tradition and a vital component of Chinese New Year celebrations. As a lion dancer, Zhi wears intricate and colorful lion costumes and mimic the majestic cat in movement….

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…

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…

Yesterday, historians and researchers at the New-York Historical Society opened this elegant bronze time capsule, entrusted to the New-York Historical Society by the Lower Wall Street Business Men’s Association in 1914. So 100 years later, what’s in the box? Given that this was a Wall Street Business association, the contents often reflected that. There was…

  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 Friday, the New-York Historical Society will present a free screening of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the 1943 classic that follows the life of the titular character through the Second Boer War, WWI and the beginning of WWII. However, Colonel Blimp actually began life as a cartoon character. Created by cartoonist David…

On Friday, October 25, the New-York Historical Society will host a free showing of Grand Illusion, with opening remarks by David Denby and Kati Marton, as part of its WWI and Its Legacy Film series. Directed by Jean Renoir, the film follows French officers attempting to escape a German POW camp, but Renoir uses the POW structure to comment on class relationships, war, and Europe’s changing social order.