American Antiquarian Society

Full of romance and adventure, dime novels were a variety of melodramatic fiction that was popular in the United States from about 1860 until the early 1900s.  Published as cheap paperbacks (most cost only ten cents), they were generally regarded as low-quality fiction. Women, more often than not, were major characters in these novels. This exhibition explores these women.

A look at women's work, from before the American Revolution through the Industrial Revolution, using selected images from the Society's collection.

This online exhibition explores the connections between American and French lithography in the early days of this printing technology.

Online exhibition showing an array of Christmas images from the Society's collections. 

This exhibition focuses on the traditions and myths of Valentine's Day by examining handmade and commercially produced love tokens from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, held at the American Antiquarian Society. From the intimate appeal of reading a beloved’s handwriting to the sheer delight of quickly sending and receiving anonymous messages through the mail, the celebration of what was originally a minor saint’s day connected lovers, friends, and enemies both close and far.

The history of America has always been intimately entwined with the history of communications media—and that has always been changing. This exhibition broadly explores the interconnectedness of American news media, in all its formats, with changes in technology, business, politics, society, and community from 1730 to 1865.

Online exhibition of lithographs, watercolors, and drawings of artist David Claypoole Johnston.

This exhibition brings together a selection of images from the Society's collections that illustrate the most popular and most beautiful New England destinations for summertime visitors.

This online exhibition considers the ways William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) characters were pictured inside the covers of literary annuals and gift books in the 19th century.

Using print and manuscript collections at the American Antiquarian Society and the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, this exhibition explores portrayals of Turner in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Depictions often reveal less about who Turner was and more about the zeitgeist in which a given Turner was created.