City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library
Featured Content
Circulation Records, 1789-1805
Page through the ledgers in our book viewer, and visit individual pages to see transcribed borrowing histories of early readers.Community Archive: Our Members and COVID-19
This gallery showcases how Library members have spent some of their days during the COVID-19 outbreak. We hope this gallery offers another platform for our membership to interact with another, to feel connected by seeing how we are spending our days, while we remain apart. Below, clickthrough to see submissions from friends and staff.Elizabeth Hamilton: Letters of Grief
Read letters from the Library's Manuscripts Collections written by Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton and Rufus King to Richard Harison and Matthew Clarkson in the aftermath of Hamilton's death.Library Catalogs
Explore the Library's founding collections through its printed catalogs, from 1758 to 1850.On the Town: Your Favorite New York City Reads
In this short-term exhibition, members and staff share their favorite titles about or set in the Big Apple. Survey the staggering breadth of writing our city has inspired, and find a new favorite of your own.
The Book Beautiful: Margaret Armstrong and Her Bindings
Margaret Armstrong was one of the most sought-after artists in an almost forgotten chapter in the history of book publishing—the golden age of the decorated book cover (1890-1915). During Armstrong’s remarkable career, more than a million books with her covers made their way into homes and libraries across America. By 1895 the beauty of Armstrong’s cover designs had placed her as a preeminent talent in an art that publishers had come to value highly. Most of her commissions were from three major publishing houses (Scribner, Putnam and Bobbs-Merrill), although in all she worked for 21 different publishers.