What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 10am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

American Antiquarian Society

Home
United States
Worcester, MA
American Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) has been committed to sharing America's stories for more than 200 years.

We collect, preserve, and make available for study the pre-twentieth-century printed record of what is now the U.S.

06/21/2026

☀️ Happy Summer Solstice! �

While the recognition of the the alignment of Stonehenge on the solstices was made in the early 18th century, it’s ability to be a wonder still captivated the children of the 19th century!

This juvenile book, Wonders, Description of Some of the Most Remarkable in Nature in Art was published by Fielding Lucas Jr. around 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland. Also included in the picture book for youth are views of the Sphinx, Fingal’s Cave and the Great Wall in China. Lucas was one of the major publishers of beautifully metal-engraved picture books in antebellum America.

This image shows a figure (perhaps a shepherd with sheep) dwarfed by the towering megaliths. The poem beneath reads:

So this, Sir, is Stonehenge, on Salisbury plain,
The famous Druidical ancient remain,
Which certainly claims ev’ry trav’ller's attention,
Tho’ why it was rais’d is not easy to mention:
Whether temple or monument first it might be
Is unknown to the learned, as well as to me.

06/19/2026

In observance of Juneteenth, the Society will be closed on Friday, June 19.

On Tuesday, June 16, we hosted a hybrid musical performance in a packed Antiquarian Hall.

Everett McCorvey, Music Worcester's artist-in-residence, and other soloists sang spirituals from AAS’s historic sheet music collection in “In Their Words & Voices: Nineteenth-Century Spirituals”

View a recording of the program at the link in our bio!

06/18/2026

Menu planning for the 4th?
Trade in your grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for something from the 19th century! 🍔🌭
This new acquisition is an 1896 Fourth of July Souvenir Menu from Russ House which features some alternative Independence Day food, including:

🦪 Saddle Rock on the half shell
🐢 Green Turtle Panama
🦞Baked Mountain
🐟 Trout, a la Regency
🥔 Potatoes, a la Serpentine
🥬 Celery on Branches
🫒 Queen Olives
🥒Sliced Cucumbers
🐷Westphalia Ham, Yorkshire Sauce
🍨 Tutti Frutti Ice Cream
🥛Cream Meringue
🥐 Crescents, Fruit Cake
🍬French Candy with Peaches and Plums
🍊Oranges
🍌Bananas
🌰 Nuts
🍇 Raisins, Cafe Noir, and more!

J.S. Young was the Proprietor in the 1890s of the San Francisco based Russ House; the ephemera item was printed by the Brunt Press. Fun fact: some of the images were taken from Palmer Cox’s popular Brownies books.

06/15/2026

🧵 This account book, headed with a neat of June 15th, belonged to Oliver P. Littlefield, and documents the work of his home-based lace manufacturing business in Holliston, Massachusetts.

Littlefield employed mostly young women, many of whom appear to be school girls, as their work dates span the late spring and summer months. Work was also done by an indentured girl and several men.

The volume documents the daily work of the young women employed by Littlefield, payments made to them, and other expenses including room and board and sundries. Also included is a sales record, which provides more information on the variety of lace manufactured; the dates span 1827-1830.

06/14/2026

Happy Flag day!

With all this talk of the 250th, let’s hear it for the 249th! On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag. 🇺🇸

This interesting item using the colors in title and subject (but alas, not in actual colors) is titled issue of The Old Flag from Berryville, Virginia is from 1862. The Society has a number of military regiment newspapers published by troops who occupied towns during the Civil War, and The Old Flag was published by members of the Third Regiment of the New
York Cavalry.

Sometimes forces took over a local printing office and created a special issue for
the troops. Often these papers provided a view of camp life that cannot be found in regular newspapers.

The Old Flag contains local news, editorials, advertisements, and jokes, while the second and third pages were left blank so soldiers could write a letter. 📝 The front of the paper references the Star Spangled Banner and the back has a cut of the flag; this issue is the only known copy of the paper. It was edited and published by Lt. S. Gregg, Frank D. Kent, M.H. Smith, Edwin Collar, C.E. Clark, H.A. Smith, of Maj. Lewis's Batallion.

06/11/2026

We’re rising to the special occasion.

How did people in 1902 imagine the year 2002 would look? This illustrated title page from 2002: Childlike One Hundred Years from Now by Laura Dayton Fessenden with illustrations by Robert J. Campbell (1873-1938) was published by Jamieson Higgins and Company of Chicago in 1902 - and it features flying children!

We’re also celebrating our friends’ 50th anniversary as a sponsor of the 2026 Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife: "Futurecasting, Futurekeeping: New Englanders Imagine Worlds to Come"

Link in bio to register for the Dublin seminar!

06/10/2026

Looking to coordinate (🥁) both math and the seas?

Look no further than the Benjamin Low manuscript. This notebook is both workbook and sketchbook containing examples of math exercises, including interest, compound interest, compound portion, duodecimals, square and cube roots and permutation.

On many of these pages are also hand-drawn images of ships referencing the War of 1812. Little is known about the creator of this notebook (except that he loved math and nautical themes! ⚓️)

06/08/2026

🎉 Join us on Saturday, July 4, for a free community open house commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence!

Guests are invited to drop in between 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. to view a selection of historic printings of our nation’s foundational document preserved at AAS from the first newspaper printing on July 6, 1776, to a richly embellished lithograph created for the Centennial Exhibition in 1876.

Additional artifacts from the AAS collections will also be on display.

At noon, enjoy a public reading of the Declaration on the steps of historic Antiquarian Hall.

We hope you will join us for this special anniversary celebration!

More information at link in bio

📷 Detail of wooden typecase of AAS founder Isaiah Thomas (1749-1831)

06/05/2026

It’s National Ketchup Day! 🍅

Did you know Thomas Jefferson was one of the first in the United States to cultivate the tomato (and legitimize the fruit?) One of the earliest recipes for “tomato catsup” appeared in the New Art of Cookery (1792) by Richard Brigg (link in bio to see the cookbook which has been digitized!).

By the mid-1800s, tomatoes and their purees had become popular, but preparing ketchup at home was time consuming. It’s no wonder that Americans embraced the first mass produced bottles of ketchup in the late 1860s. These chefs and businessmen, among those like Henry J. Heinz, would go on to produce a wide range of pickles, relishes, and other preserves for sale.

Just like you can’t have enough of the condiment, today we thought we’d over-indulge with our printed ephemera items related to the pantry staple:

🥫1. Uncataloged items which are part of the Stephen Davies Paine collection of ephemera gifted to the society last year (including images of the Heinz and Hazard & Co. factories AND the version of ketchup that comes decanted 💅),

🥫2. A collection of food labels for ketchup lithographed by Boston-based Louis Prang and Company for the “Boston Market” company in New Jersey (that gold on the labels 😍!!!); the sheet contains uncut product labels designed to go on the actual bottles of the product.

🥫3-5. The final item is a metamorphic advertising card for the Shrewsbury Tomato ketchup company; it was produced by the E.C. Hazard Company after 1870. We’ve included her asleep, awake, dreaming, and for those truly interested, the reverse. We can confirm the trade card must be held up the light for its before and after effect. The graphics printed on the reverse show through the thin paper to reveal the woman waking to a bottle of floating ketchup (?): “There is no vice so simply but assumes some mark of virtue in its outward part” (for those keeping score virtuous = ketchup 💪). What color ketchup do you dream in?

[In Heinz-sight 🥁 we probably should have posted these separately because they're so rich!]

06/02/2026

It’s been 175 years since prohibition 🍻

On this day, June 2, 1851, Maine became the first state to ban the manufacture and sale of liquor. Today’s post is getting us ready for the Chat with a Curator event happening on Thursday (ALLLL the affidavits, court and legal documents from Worcester County!), but this item actually hails from our Prohibition affidavits from Maine from 1851.

The “Maine Law” stayed on the books until National Prohibition was repealed in 1934. This interleaved document contains eight affidavits written by one person but signed by various men in Maine. The affidavits reveal the names of saloon keepers and detail when and how they sold liquor. One man testifies “I have seen John Donovan, know him by sight. His business is selling liquor. Keeps a shop in Beddefords Water St. Keeps a few cigars.” Another man records a more dangerous encounter with a barkeep – “He caught me by the throat and threw me down [and] said if I did not give it [money] up he would pound me.”

If you’d like to keep exploring other 19th-century jail-able (and maybe bailable?) offenses, be sure to join us this Thursday! Link in bio for more.

Address

185 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA
01609

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Website

http://americanantiquarian.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when American Antiquarian Society posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Address
Opening Hours
Alerts
Contact The Organization
Claim ownership or report listing

Featured

Latin American Business Organization
33 Highland Street

Want your organization to be the top-listed Non Profit Organization in Worcester?