The New England Primer

In 1995, The American Antiquarian Society acquired one of the two earliest known copies of the New England Primer. Considered a staple text of Puritan childhood that taught letters, reading, and religion, the first edition of the New England Primer was most likely printed between 1683 and 1690, either in London or Boston. Early printings of the text, such as the AAS copy that was printed in 1727, are extremely scarce because of heavy use by generations of children and families.

Reading Territory: Indigenous and Black Freedom, Removal, and the Nineteenth-Century State

The formation of new states was an essential feature of US expansion throughout the long nineteenth century, and debates over statehood and states' rights were waged not only in legislative assemblies but also in newspapers, maps, land surveys, and other forms of print and visual culture. Assessing these texts and archives, Kathryn Walkiewicz theorizes the logics of federalism and states' rights in the production of US empire, revealing how they were used to imagine states into existence while clashing with relational forms of territoriality asserted by Indigenous and Black people.

Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America

In the modern world, we often dismiss phrenology and physiognomy as pseudosciences, short-lived fads, or dangerous philosophies that laid the groundwork for biological determinism. However, between the 1770s and 1860s, many Americans viewed these disciplines as legitimate sciences in which people’s heads and faces could reveal hidden “truths” about intelligence, character, and personality.

City on a Hill: Urban Idealism in America from the Puritans to the Present

A common refrain is that Americans dislike cities, favoring places at some distance from the buzz and complexities of urban life. But what if Americans have instead been intrigued by cities of their imagination, rather than those at their feet? The first European settlers saw America as a paradise regained. The continent seemed to offer a God-given opportunity to start again and build the perfect community.

How to Save a Circus Poster: Collection, Conservation, Context

If you found a box containing a jumbled pile of old, crumpled paper, would you keep it? You might, if you knew it would turn out to be an eight-foot-tall circus poster that includes the earliest known depiction of an American circus ring! Join Babette Gehnrich, AAS chief conservator; Lauren B. Hewes, AAS vice president for collections; and Matthew Wittmann, curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection at Houghton Library, for the story behind salvaging an 1830s poster, printed by Jared W.

Agrotopias: An American Literary History of Sustainability

Join us virtually as Dr. Abby Goode discusses the foundations of American environmentalism and the enduring partnership between racism, eugenics, and agrarian ideals in the United States. Throughout the nineteenth century, writers as diverse as Martin Delany, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Walt Whitman worried about unsustainable conditions such as population growth and plantation slavery. In response, they imagined agrotopias—sustainable societies unaffected by the nation's agricultural and population crises—elsewhere.

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America

Join us as Leila Philip highlights how beavers played an oversized role in American history and how they can play an important role in its future. In Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America, Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America and feverish western expansion, which gave the country its first corporations and multi-millionaires.

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