The New York Public Library Honors Over 100 Years of Research With New Exhibition

November 8, 2019—The New York Public Library will honor its patrons in a new exhibition, Made at NYPL, which showcases the work of scholars and researchers alongside the items that inspired and informed them. Made at NYPL, opening on November 14 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, features over 100 items from the Library’s collections that demonstrate the creative process from ideation to completed project. Featuring 34 original works, from Polaroid technology to The Feminine Mystique, Made at NYPL represents the cycle of information and inspiration that only a freely accessible research center like the Library can make possible.

Since its inception, the Library has been a beacon for scholarship; welcoming a variety of audiences from across the world: students, educators, researchers, writers—and readers. Every new researcher and work that draws from the Library’s vast collections extends the legacy of works from the past. 

Made at NYPL opens as the Library prepares to celebrate the 125th anniversary of its founding in 1895, as well as the 20th anniversary of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, the Library’s premier fellowship program. These milestones offer an opportunity to reflect on the indelible works made possible by the Library’s collections. Highlights of the exhibition include: 

• Account book of Thomas Jefferson: Cullman Center Fellow Annette Gordon-Reed explored the founding father’s complex private life in her book “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs”: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. Jefferson’s daybook, used from 1791 to1803, contains daily entries concerning household business, farming matters, traveling expenses, as well as travel itineraries and weather data. 

• Polaroid sunglasses and camera: Edwin Land, best known for inventing the Polaroid camera, was a regular patron of the Library’s then-called Science Division in the late 1920s. It was there he discovered the identity of the crucial polarizing crystal while reading an 1852 article by British doctor-scientist William Herapath, which is referenced in a book on the kaleidoscope by Sir David Brewster that is also on display.

• Arturo Schomburg’s unfinished culinary manuscript: Schomburg Center Fellow Rafia Zafar’s Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning, charts African-American foodways from the early 19th century to the present while examining—and correcting—common stereotypes. Arturo Schomburg, founder of the eponymous research center, began writing a black gastronomy; and his uncompleted manuscript served as a roadmap for Zafar’s work.

• Dear Merce, Short Film: Netta Yerushalmy, a Jerome Robbins Dance Division Dance Research Fellow, relied on the Library’s Merce Cunnigham archives to create the choreography seen in this film. Also on display are selections from recordings of Cunningham performances. 

• Arrest card for Billie Holiday: Recent MacArthur Genius Grant–recipient and Cullman Center Fellow Saidiya Hartman examined the radical social choices made by young black women in her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments. Using the Library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division, Hartman relied on primary documents such as Billie Holiday’s arrest card from when she was 14 and living in Harlem. 

The impact of the Library’s support of scholarship and imagination extends far beyond the creation of the works themselves. Made at NYPL examines the cycle of engagement, inspiration, and knowledge created by the Library’s collection with a series of data visualizations. Infographics will illustrate the breadth and depth of the Library's archive by tracking the distribution of Library material in four separate books—Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan Beach, Caryl Phillips’s Dancing in the Dark, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and Andrew Delbanco’s Melville: His World and Work—and follow the publication, checkouts, and use of the contemporary works.

Established in 1999, the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers recently welcomed its newest class of 15 Fellows. Located at the 42nd Street Library, the Center provides a dedicated space for research and writing, as well as enhanced access to the Library’s world-renowned collections. The impressive and growing list of books created by Cullman Center Fellows during their time at the Library supports the Library’s broader efforts to advance knowledge, curiosity, and the free exchange of ideas. 

Continuing its support of the research community, the Library recently opened the Center for Research in the Humanities, a nine-room space dedicated to quiet research, work with the Library’s research collections, temporary displays, and collections-related programming. The over 8,000-square-foot Center—situated on the second floor of the Schwarzman Building—has 56 seats exclusively for use by authors, scholars, students, and others engaged in extensive research, doubling the number of seats available in the building for that purpose. 

Made at NYPL will be open from November 14 until July 3, 2020, in the Rayner Special Collections Wing & Print Gallery of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. 

Support for The New York Public Library’s Exhibitions Program has been provided by Celeste Bartos, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos Exhibitions Fund, Jonathan Altman, and Miriam and Ira D. Wallach.  

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library is a free provider of education and information for the people of New York and beyond. With 92 locations—including research and branch libraries—throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions, programming and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use its resources at www.nypl.org. To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how to support the Library at nypl.org/support.