New-York Historical Society

07/08/2024

You could *drop your children off* at this now-bygone department store while you shopped.

Samuel Klein opened his Union Square store in 1906. Kleins’s flagship location sold everything from clothing to furs, jewelry, and pet supplies.

These paintings by Anne Eisner show the interior and exterior of a dressing room at Klein’s—both identified in the title as a woman’s sacred space. Department stores provided a pathway for women to disrupt social convention by leaving the home and pushing, unescorted, into public space.

See these paintings and more in "Lost New York." https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B

🎨 Anne Eisner, Klein's Outer Sanctum (ca. 1934–38) and Klein's Inner Sanctum, ca. 1934–38, Oil on canvas; Gift of Christie McDonald.

06/08/2024

in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The 15th Amendment (ratified in 1870) prohibited states from denying any male citizen the right to vote based on “race, color or previous condition of servitude.” However, in the years after the amendment various discriminatory practices were used to prevent African Americans from exercising their right to vote.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were the most significant civil rights bills since Reconstruction. These laws signaled the end of legalized Jim Crow, though the struggle for equality and full citizenship continues.

This photo of President Lyndon B. Johnson shows an earlier talk with Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, and James Farmer on December 3, 1963.

Learn more in our "Meet the Presidents" gallery. https://bit.ly/2vnWLvF

📷 LBJ Library photo by Yoichi Okamoto

05/08/2024

🤯 🌊 The world is your oyster—and *HALF* the world’s oyster population once thrived in the Hudson River system. ⁣
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Because oysters suck in seawater to extract the nutrients, they filter the water as they eat. The harbor’s original oyster population could clean its waters in just a few days.⁣
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New York began losing its oyster beds to overharvesting in the early 1800s. Staten Island’s were the first to go, but, in the 1820s, the introduction of seed oysters from the Chesapeake Bay revived them. African American oystermen cultivated and worked the oyster beds, doing well enough to support a growing community in Sandy Ground—home to 50 households by the 1890s. Oyster cultivation sustained Staten Island’s beds until pollution overwhelmed them in the first quarter of the 20th century.⁣

Billion Oyster Project is restoring oyster reefs to New York Harbor in collaboration with New York City communities.⁣ To learn more for you can browse our online exhibition Hudson Rising: https://bit.ly/3JA96iq

📷⁣ 1) Herman A. Blumenthal, Fishermen in a boat with harvested oysters, ca. 1920.⁣ 2) Robert L. Bracklow, Dorlon's on wheels' mobile oyster vendor, ca 1890-1900.⁣ 3) Gluttony Collection oyster plate, ca. 2007, Glazed porcelain; Gift of Virginia Sin.

04/08/2024

🎾 Billie Jean King had a huge influence on women’s tennis, and she also left a stylistic mark on the sport through her collaboration with British designer Ted Tinling.

Last Chance: Today is the last day to explore our installation "Serving Style." We are OPEN until 5 pm today. https://bit.ly/4cl1crc

03/08/2024

Fatal fashions and the fight for wildlife 🦅 👒

In 1886, ornithologist Frank Chapman counted 40 different bird species decorating more thans 500 ladies’ hats as he walked the New York City streets.

The Great Egret's long feathers were among the most fashionable. John James Audubon compared them to “the flowing robes of the noble ladies of Europe.”

The fashion for these feathers became nearly fatal, since commercial plume hunters killed entire bird colonies during breeding season, leaving the young to starve. More than 300 Great Egrets provided just a few pounds of feathers, and plumes traded in the tons. (Thankfully, the species is now protected by conservation laws and has staged a comeback.)

Learn more about lost spaces, places, and communities in our special exhibition "Lost New York." https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B

🚨 Please Note: The Museum is closed through Saturday. We will reopen regular hours (11 am-5 pm) on Sunday, August 4, 2024.

📷 1) Jessie Tarbox Beals, Model wearing tall hat of many feathers, ca. 1905-18. 2) John James Audubon, Detail of Great Egret (Ardea alba), 1821; Purchased for the Society by public subscription from Mrs. John J. Audubon, Oppenheimer/New-York Historical Society Edition archival pigment prints

02/08/2024

One of the greatest tourist guides in Hudson River history, William Wade’s panoramic map guided steamboat and armchair travelers alike along a 138-mile route. It marked thousands of points of interest, from buildings to historical landmarks and natural features.

These included the brewery of Matthew Vassar, who would later found Vassar College; Sing-Sing prison, then only nineteen years old; George Washington's Revolutionary War headquarters in Newburgh; the site of Alexander Hamilton’s fatal duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, NJ; and Ellis Island, forty-seven years before it opened its doors to immigrants.

Click through selected sections here and explore the full image for yourself in an installation at the Museum—on view through August 18, 2024. https://bit.ly/4c7bA4j

🚨 Please note: The Museum is closed today and tomorrow but will reopen for regular hours this Sunday, August 4, 2024.

01/08/2024

Due to a private event, the Museum will be closed from August 1–3.

We’ll be open for regular hours on Sunday, August 4. Learn more about planning your visit via our website here: https://bit.ly/2kivR31

30/07/2024

This “historical pageant" requires a closer look.

In 1909, New York commemorated the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s exploration of the Hudson River. The statewide Hudson–Fulton Celebration festivities included a parade with 54 floats, documented in photos, souvenirs, and watercolor designs from our archives. The parade's floats were escorted by groups that drew on romanticized ideas of Native cultures for their symbols and customs, and even dressed in redface.

Artist-in-residence Beatrice Glow reimagines the parade with a series of new float designs created in collaboration with nine artists, scholars, and activists whose heritages were impacted by Dutch colonialism.

Glow asked, "What kind of commemoration do we co-create to tell a fuller story and furthermore, reimagine the solidarity-filled future that we urgently need?" Her resulting sculptures—created in virtual reality, 3D printed, and meticulously handcrafted—are on view in the exhibition "Beatrice Glow: When Our Rivers Meet." See it before the show closes on August 18, 2024. Learn more: https://bit.ly/46kxHTO

29/07/2024

New Yorkers still mourn the loss of the original Penn Station.

Designed by architectural firm McKim, Mead, & White, Pennsylvania Station's original terminal opened in 1910. The monumental Beaux-Arts central waiting room had 84 granite columns, 148-foot ceilings, and measured a block and a half long! Its sun-soaked concourse featured a magnificent modern arched steel and greenhouse-like glass roof. Below, 21 tracks served 11 platforms, accommodating up to 144 trains per hour.

Running perpendicular to Penn Station’s main waiting hall was an arcade lined with a pharmacy, soda counter, and shops. Visitors could grab a bite at the lunchroom or relax more formally in the dining room before catching their train.

As Americans became increasingly dependent on trains during the 1910s, '20s, and '30s, Penn Station grew in popularity. By 1945, train ridership peaked—in that year alone, 100 million passengers passed through the station. But after World War II, everything changed.

By 1960, affordable air travel and the popularity of cars brought the decline of the railroad. Penn Station’s ridership plummeted. Leadership eventually cut a deal and sold the air rights. In 1962, plans were revealed to demolish the station to build Madison Square Garden. The terminal was to be rebuilt entirely underground.

The demolition of Penn Station sparked major developments in historic preservation movements, including the 1965 New York Landmarks Law that has protected more than 38,000 buildings.

Explore more bygone spaces and places in our special exhibition "Lost New York." https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B

28/07/2024

The intersection of the Bronx’s Grand Concourse and 149th Street is now virtually unrecognizable compared to how it looked 120 years ago.

For one thing, there was initially no Grand Concourse below 161st Street. From there to 138th Street was a narrower road called Mott Avenue, which was, in the early 1900s, being torn up to accommodate the city’s first subway line.

Taken between 1902 and 1904, these photographs from the Subway Construction Photograph Collection illustrate the “cut and cover” method of tunneling in which deep trenches were excavated from ground level for the tunnels to be built.

Browse more online here: https://bit.ly/3vltImi

27/07/2024

Croquet, an Olympic sport?

It was in 1900—for the first and only time.

Women also participated in tennis and golf in the 1900 Olympics, but since the croquet match took place first, the women croquet players were the very first women to compete as Olympic athletes.

📷 Unidentified photographer. PR68, Subject File. Patricia D. Klingenstein Library.

26/07/2024

Did you know that the first Olympics were also the first where women were allowed to compete?

In the 1900 Paris games, women could participate—but out of 997 athletes only 22 were women! And they could only compete in sports that were deemed “feminine.” Women’s participation increased slowly over the years.

Decades later, in the 1924 Olympics (also held in Paris), you can see that the Olympics were still mostly a celebration of male athletes. Click through to see materials from the 1924 Olympics in our Patricia D. Klingenstein Library collections.

Taking matters into her own hands, French athlete and sports advocate Alice Miliat (1884-1957) organized a game for female athletes. The Women's World Games (which welcomed 77 athletes from 5 countries to Paris in 1922) ultimately pressured the Olympics Committee to include women in more events in the official games.

In this year’s summer Olympics women will be equally represented for the first time!

25/07/2024

👒 Window shopping 🛍️

By 1900 New York was at the center of a consumer revolution, signaled by the proliferation of shops with window displays intended to grab the attention of prospective shoppers. Window shopping became a popular pastime, and the subject became an artistic subgenre. In Everett Shinn's pastel work seen here, a woman looks longingly through a hat shop window.

"From Paul Revere to Edward Hopper: Treasures from the Leonard L. Milberg Collection" is on view through October 27, 2024. https://bit.ly/3XMl29R

🎨 Everett Shinn, The Hat Shop Window, 1904, Pastel on paper. Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Leonard L. Milberg

23/07/2024

The one and only Edward Hopper 🤩

Hopper was born in 1882 in Nyack, New York. The artist is best known for his enigmatic scenes evoking loneliness. This is a preparatory drawing for one of Hopper’s most famous etchings showing a couple traveling on an elevated train at night. The couple seem deep in conversion, but the woman appears distracted as she gazes out the window—an attitude that adds to the sense of psychological tension.

See this work and more on view in "From Paul Revere to Edward Hopper: Treasures from the Leonard L. Milberg Collection"—on view through October 27, 2024. https://bit.ly/3XMl29R

🎨 1) Edward Hopper, Night on the El Train, 1918, Charcoal on paper. Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Leonard L. Milberg. © 2024 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. 2) Installation view.

22/07/2024

Poet Emma Lazarus was born in New York City in 1849.

She wrote “The New Colossus” in 1883. It was not until 1903 that the bronze plaque bearing her sonnet would be added to the Statue of Liberty's pedestal.⁣ It reads:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
—Emma Lazarus, November 2, 1883

📷 1) Irving Browning, Statue of Liberty, circa 1920-1938. 2) Emma Lazarus / engraved by T. Johnson ; photographed by W. Kurtz, ca. 1888. Library of Congress.

21/07/2024

When was ice cream first advertised in the United States? 🍒 Here's the scoop. 🍦

This advertisement from Rivington’s New York Gazetteer on November 25, 1773 announced confectioner Philip Lenzi’s arrival from London. The ad included a list of fine treats he had available for purchase, including sugar plumbs, dragees, barley sugar, white and brown sugar candy, sugar ornaments—and ice cream and fruits.

Recipes for ice cream began to appear in England and America during the early 18th century. Among the earliest were the detailed instructions provided in Mrs. Mary Eale’s Receipts, published in London in 1718. The Oxford English Dictionary included a definition for ice cream in 1744.

Wishing you all a refreshing !

21/07/2024

🌱 Before Central Park was the area you enjoy today it was a community of African American property owners known as Seneca Village. ⁣
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Seneca Village existed from 1825 through 1857 between 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues. By the 1840s, it had become a multi-ethnic community of African Americans, Irish and German immigrants, and perhaps a few Native Americans. In 1855, the New York State Census reported approximately 264 people living in the village. There were three churches, as well as a school and several cemeteries. ⁣
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Lower Manhattan, where most New Yorkers lived, had become overcrowded and unsanitary. Many affluent and civic-minded citizens were concerned that commerce and industry were taking over. They were also displeased that communities of poor immigrants were changing the character of downtown. As a result, they proposed that a large park be built.

in 1853, the city government authorized taking the land to lay grounds for a public park. All village residents were forced to vacate beginning in 1856.

Learn more about the lost spaces and places in our special exhibition "Lost New York"—on view now. https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B
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📷 Map of the area later bounded by 81st and 86th Streets, Central Park at the proposed 6th Avenue, and Columbus Avenue, Manhattan, ca. 1836, Pen and ink, watercolor, pencil on paper.

20/07/2024

🥵 How did New Yorkers of the past beat the summer heat? By taking a dip in river water—despite rampant pollution.

Before public pools, New York City had river bathhouses: floating structures with a central well sunk into the river water. The first two opened in 1870 at Thirteenth Street on the Hudson River and Fifth Street on the East River. Harper’s Weekly described them as “in every way convenient” and noted that they stayed open for night bathing by gaslight.

They were mandated as a public health necessity for those living in overcrowded tenements. They were deemed safer than open river swimming, which city residents also did in the days before widespread air conditioning.

At the height of their popularity, 22 river bathhouses dotted the city. They were defunded in 1942.

See more in "Lost New York"—on view now. https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B

📷 1) Unidentified artist, Interior of Swimming Bath, 1870. 2) Harold Roth, Boys jumping into the Harlem River with the Third Avenue Elevated Railroad Bridge in the background (detail), 1950. 3) Frank Ingalls, Floating bath house, Battery Swimming Baths, Battery Park, ca. 1901-1930. 4) After Stanley Fox, Free Swimming Baths, foot of Fifth Street, East River, 1870.

18/07/2024

Get ready to laugh until it hurts! Join us this Friday night for a great roster of stand-up comics.

Host Tom Delgado leads a night of laughs with a NYC spin featuring Leclerc Andre (The Tonight Show and Conan); Katie Hannigan (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert); and Todd Barry (Comedy Central).

Learn more: https://bit.ly/3Y09yjl

17/07/2024

“I wanted to envision the Dutch colonial era from a different timeline, starting with a Lenape perspective," said artist-in-residence Beatrice Glow.

Learn more about the special exhibition "When Our Rivers Meet" in an interview with Glow from Cultural Survival.

For her latest exhibition “When Our Rivers Meet,” New York Historical Society artist-in-residence Beatrice Glow reckons with the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam upon the lands of the Lenape Peoples, while also linking this to the broader global colonia...

16/07/2024

The Civil War ended and slavery was abolished by the time that Ida B. Wells was three years old. She heard her parents’ stories and saw the scars on her mother’s back from beatings she had suffered. Wells was born in 1862.

In 1892 her friend Thomas Moss, a Memphis letter carrier and grocer, was lynched by a mob after confrontations with rival white grocers. Wells wrote a series of anti-lynching editorials, documenting 728 lynching cases that had occurred between 1884 and 1892. Within months of her friend’s murder, she wrote a collection of articles under the title “Southern Horrors.” Her goal was “to arouse the conscience of America,” and she became America’s best-known crusader against lynching.

Learn more through Women & the American Story, our free online curriculum designed to highlight women's contributions to American history. https://bit.ly/2lKAnbf

16/07/2024

⭐ Mary Cassatt was the *only* American to exhibit with the Impressionists. Cassatt first displayed prints with the group in 1880.

"The Banjo Lesson" (1894) showcases Cassatt’s continued interest in printmaking. She was often inspired by Japanese woodblock prints and admired the ethereal quality of delicate dry point lines. This work relates to a panel of her now-lost mural for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. The mural's theme was “Modern Woman” and featured a banjo-strumming woman as an allegory of music. (Banjo playing became quite popular at the time among middle- and upper-class women.)

See this stunning etching alongside another print by Cassatt, "The Bath" (1891), in the special exhibition "From Paul Revere to Edward Hopper: Treasures from the Leonard L. Milberg Collection." https://bit.ly/3XMl29R

🎨 1) Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson, 1894. Multiplate color drypoint and soft ground etching. Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Leonard L. Milberg. 2-3) Installation views of Cassatt's prints.

15/07/2024

🎤 We've got jokes! 😆

Join us this Friday night for a roster of acclaimed stand-ups. Host Tom Delgado—a comedian, actor, writer, and tour guide—leads a night of laughs with a NYC spin featuring Leclerc Andre (The Tonight Show and Conan); Katie Hannigan (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert); and Todd Barry (Comedy Central).

Stop by our New-York Historical Summer! series for a cocktail and jazz before you settle in for some stand-up. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3Y09yjl

14/07/2024

✨ What was the New York Crystal Palace? 💭

The Crystal Palace exhibition opened in 1853 in what is known today as Bryant Park. It was modeled after the Crystal Palace in London two years earlier. It housed the 1853 Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations, which was like the U.S.’s first world fair, where visitors marveled at technological inventions from across the globe.

The New York Times wrote that “the Crystal Palace Exhibition will prove the most interesting and attractive affair which our country has ever witnessed.” The gleaming glass, steel, and iron structure was hailed by Walt Whitman as “loftier, fairer, ampler than any yet.”
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The lease was for $1 a year, for a period of five years, on the condition that the building be constructed of iron and glass, and that admission not be set higher than 50 cents. At the time the area was rapidly developing but was not a hub of commercial and cultural life in the city. ⁣
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The fair contained over 4300 exhibitions organized into 31 categories. It was a popular attraction for a while, but attendance dropped off in the winter and it closed in 1854. The building was later used to host special events, but caught fire and burned to the ground during the 30th annual fair of the American Institute in 1858.⁣

Learn more in our special exhibition “Lost New York”—on view now. https://bit.ly/4aBuX5B

📷 1) Endicott & Co., Interior View (detail), 1853. Gift of Daniel Parish, Jr., 1904. 2) Victor Prevost, Crystal Palace exterior, circa 1857. 3) Bird's eye view of Crystal Palace, undated. 4) Unidentified photographer, Interior of Crystal Palace, ca. 1853. Daguerreotype. 5) François Courtin, 1853-54, Gift of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot, 1941. 6) Richard Haas, Untitled, 2006. Gift of Cooley LLP. Courtesy the artist. 7) Frank Leslie, Inauguration ceremonies, view under the grand dome, 1853-07, NYPL. 8) H. H. Lloyd & Co., The Destruction by Fire of the New York Crystal Palace, Oct. 5, 1858. Purchase, Wilbur Fund, 1943.

13/07/2024

☀️ Hot girl summer. 😰 👙 Imagine taking a dip in the ocean—wearing this bathing suit from 125 years ago.⁣
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The Navy Blue Flannel Bathing Suit is complete with bathing tights with feet. https://bit.ly/3TBnETG

13/07/2024

The Civil War Draft Riots began 161 years ago. It was the largest civil disturbance in U.S. history—and it took place in New York City.

A mob of more than 50,000 people voiced their opposition to the Civil War Draft in a violent outburst that took place over the course of four days and targeted African American residents.

Rich men could buy their way out of the draft for $300 (about a year’s salary), leaving mostly working class men—many Irish immigrants—to shoulder the burden. They wreaked havoc across the city and targeted Black civilians. (African Americans were exempt from the draft, as they were not yet considered citizens.)

When this draft wheel was donated to the New-York Historical Society at the end of the Civil War in 1865 it still contained more than 3,600 unread draft cards—some of which you can see on display in the Museum's 4th floor.

The mob also zeroed in on the Colored Orphan Asylum on 43rd Street and Fifth Avenue. Thankfully, the 250 orphans who lived inside were evacuated, but the orphanage was never rebuilt in the same location. Before the crowd torched the orphanage to the ground, one young girl was able to save this family Bible from the dining room and it's on display in our Objects Tell Stories gallery.

12/07/2024

Last chance!

Explore our special installation commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Dutch founding of New Amsterdam. On view is the Castello Plan, a map depicting New Amsterdam at the peak of its settlement circa 1660, just before the English took control. Through documents and objects, the installation explores how settlers, Indigenous people, and enslaved Africans experienced the world illustrated in the Castello Plan.

"New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam" closes this Sunday, July 14, 2024. Learn more: https://bit.ly/43fYq27

11/07/2024

“Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.”

On this day in 1804 Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr faced off in the most famous duel in U.S. history. ➡️ Click through for related objects from our collection.

11/07/2024

"Popular understanding of New York history is about to get even more robust, with three new niche exhibits to debut at the New-York Historical Society this fall."

Explore women’s history through everyday clothing, Robert Caro’s life and publication of The Power Broker, and three centuries of New Yorkers and their pets. Read more about what's coming up from Forbes.

Three centuries of pet ownership, women's fashion and Robert Caro's legacy will all be explored in upcoming exhibitions.

10/07/2024

👀 Hello Nikola Tesla.⁣
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Tesla was born in 1856 in the village of Smiljan (in what is now Croatia). He came to the U.S. in 1884 and spent much of his career in NYC, generating patents related to electrical technology. ⁣His letter to John Sanford Barnes, as well as the studio portrait and brochure, reflects his efforts to attract much-needed investments.⁣

📷 1) Burr McIntosh, Nikola Tesla, circa 1900-1910, glass plate negative. 2-4) Nikola Tesla, Letter to John Sanford Barnes, 14 April 1904, and promotional brochure. Naval History Society Collection.