Museum Monday: Big Apple Offers Pre-Eminent Library & Museum Collection

New York City has the distinction of being the most populated city in the U.S. It has built the largest mass transit system in the world, in order to keep them moving. To keep those 'on-the-go' masses fed, it boasts 4000 street food vendors offering hot dogs, pretzels, falafel, kebobs, and more!

However, when NYC’s first underground subway was being heralded in 1904, The New York Historical Society, one of the nation’s most pre-eminent library and museum cultural institutions, was already turning 100 years old.

New-York Historical Society, Robert H. and Clarice Smith
New York Gallery of American History
Credit: New-York Historical Society / Jon Wallen

The Essence of History ~ Making History Matter!
The New-York Historical Society, one of America's pre-eminent cultural institutions, is dedicated to fostering research and presenting history and art exhibitions and public programs that reveal the dynamism of history and its influence on the world of today. New-York Historical is recognized for engaging the public with deeply researched and far-ranging exhibitions showing the importance of history and how it matters.

Founded in 1804, New-York Historical has a mission to explore the richly layered history of New York City and State and the country, and to serve as a national forum for the discussion of issues surrounding the making and meaning of history. 

New-York Historical Society,
77th Street Entrance
Credit: New-York Historical Society /
Jon Wallen

A Library & Museum
The New-York Historical Society is both a library and museum. Within these sections, a visitor will find a world of options that include both onsite and online experiences. There are portals to current exhibitions, ongoing exhibitions, future exhibitions, traveling exhibitions, online exhibitions and past exhibitions.

Collection portals allow visitors access to printed collections, graphic collections, manuscript collections and digital collections. The extensive photograph collections, a part of the graphic collections, are particularly strong in portraits and documentary images of New York-area buildings and street scenes from 1839 to 1945, although contemporary photography continues to be collected. The bulk of these images are arranged by location, or, for portraits, by sitter. Both professional and amateur photographers (many unidentified) are represented.

Dive Into the Digital Collection
The New-York Historical Society offers online visitors the ability to dive in to it’s online museum collections featuring more than 60,000 artifacts and works of art from their collection. According to its website, the Historical Society has been able to make these type of groundbreaking exhibitions and educational programs possible through collaboratively working together with many partners and through endowments established by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Hearst Foundations. Programs are supported, in part, by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. Additional support is provided by The Barker Welfare Foundation, The Hyde and Watson Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation and Verizon.

See the Big Apple & Visit The New-York Historical Society
The next time you travel to New York City, be sure to plan a visit to The New-York Historical Society. It has been said it is a “good starting point for your visit to New York.” History matters here! For information, directions, and a complete schedule, check here. 

New York Historical Society: Gotham Reborn for the Digital Age from GloboMaestro on Vimeo.

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