Posts from the Manuscripts and Archives Division

Fake news, radical resistance, and the coming of the American Revolution.

Recently digitized collections show how prisons protected property owners before and after the American Revolution.

An interview with Kyle Roberts about his new book, Evangelical Gotham, which was Made at NYPL.

When George Washington passed away, New Yorkers fought in the streets over his legacy.

In early New York City, reasoned and literary argument was understood as critical to political debate.

There are so many variables: who Black was, where he was and when, what he was doing with whom when he was there, and—most of all— what he had to say about it.

Fears of foreign meddling spurred the development of the United States' first political parties.

A story of financial fraud, failure, and a tragic suicide in early New York City, told from the diary of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker.

A sympathetic account of the execution of British spy John André, written by an American Army officer.

A recently digitized item sheds light on the profound social upheaval caused by the American Revolution in New York.

The infamous Whiskey Rebellion, told from the perspective of the soldiers who suppressed it.

A New York woman's interactions with women of different cultures on the northern frontier of the American Revolution.

Health and disease in early New York City.

The White House designation of Stonewall as a national monument prominently featured LGBT historical materials from our Manuscripts & Archives Division, available online in our Digital Collections.

Most Americans in the revolutionary period found out who signed the Declaration of Independence in print, not parchment. The job of printing it went to a woman named Mary Katherine Goddard.

One woman's account of a parade of Freemasons in early-nineteenth-century New York City.

The presidential election of 1840 was a fascinating moment in American political—and confectionary—history. While Harrison's status as a well-known war hero almost certainly contributed to his victory, I like to believe that his popularity was further bolstered by the cake created in his honor.

A major lottery jackpot in 1799 captures the attention of Elizabeth De Hart Bleecker.

One Philadelphian's account of the celebrations accompanying the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766, and what it tells us about the coming of the American Revolution.