Rachel Wall (née Schmidt) was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on October 1, 1760. She was 29 years old on October 8, 1789, when she was executed by hanging on the Boston Common. According to some accounts, Wall may have been America’s first female pirate; it is certain that she was the last woman to be … Continue reading In Her Own Words: The Life and Death of Rachel Wall, Massachusetts’ Female Pirate| Past is Present
Last year, the American Antiquarian Society received a grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to support the reorganization, rehousing, and digitization of 655 pages of letters, notebooks, and photographs created by formerly enslaved people. The new digital resource Letters from Freedom provides additional context to the materials and to the stories of the people … Continue reading Letters from Freedom: New Digital Resource| Past is Present
As a cataloger at the American Antiquarian Society, one of my current projects involves updating bibliographic catalog records for American women of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. AAS prioritizes cataloging for marginalized groups through the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) initiative, and I find it rewarding to contribute to a more inclusive and diverse … Continue reading The Infinities of Women’s Experiences: Cataloging Biographies at AAS, 1844-2024| Past is Present
Publishers of amateur newspapers devoted a significant amount of their limited space to critiquing other amateur papers — sometimes constructively, but often not. Two amateur publishers from Dassel, Minnesota, Allison C. Brokaw and Reno L. Hayford, grew tired of the critical nature of amateur journalism and wanted publishers to focus their efforts on literary pursuits. … Continue reading Adventures in Amateur Newspaper Cataloging: Roasts| Past is Present
Thanks to a generous grant from the Pine Tree Foundation of New York, newly digitized Hawaiian-language materials are now available through Printing in the Hawaiian Language, a digital resource on the American Antiquarian Society website. The resource contains a digital library of 115 digitized Hawaiian materials, as well as background information on the Hawaiian collection … Continue reading Printing in the Hawaiian Language: New Digital Resource| Past is Present
Recently, I had the privilege of making a display that is now exhibited in the American Antiquarian Society reading room, as you enter through the main glass doors of Antiquarian Hall. My exhibit focuses on manumissions in 1800s America. Originally, I planned to highlight the freedom suit as a legal means of resistance to slavery. … Continue reading Exploring Manumissions in the AAS Collections: A Summer Page’s Experience| Past is Present
During my residency at the American Antiquarian Society as a National Endowment for the Humanities Long-Term Fellow in the fall of 2021, the AAS acquired a letterbook from the New England Type and Stereotype Foundry. The letterbook is now transcribed and available for AAS researchers, offering much for scholars of nineteenth-century print culture, especially those … Continue reading New! Manuscript Transcription: New England Type and Stereotype Foundry Letterbook| Past is Present
Tom Thumb takes center stage as both a sword-wielding hero and object of royal curiosity in this early nineteenth-century picture book. Although this rhymed tale is set in the early Medieval court …| Past is Present
