Planned by the Gilder Lehrman Institute in collaboration with the New-York Historical Society. October 16, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of John Brown's doomed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859. Brown, an ardent abolitionist who believed in racial equality, embraced violence as a means to end slavery. Executed in 1859, he has been both vilified as a murderer and celebrated as a martyr. This exhibition of rare materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection and New-York Historical explores Brown's beliefs and activities at a critical juncture in American history and invites us to ponder the struggle for civil rights down to the present.

Planned by the Gilder Lehrman Institute in collaboration with N-YHS.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/

October 16, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of John Brown's doomed raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859.  Brown, an ardent abolitionist who believed in racial equality, embraced violence as a means to end slavery. Executed in 1859, he has been both vilified as a murderer and celebrated as a martyr. This exhibition of rare materials from the Gilder Lehrman Collection and N-YHS explores Brown's beliefs and activities at a critical juncture in American history and invites us to ponder the struggle for civil rights down to the present.

Although at first a casual circle, the group became tightly organized after FDR's nomination. After the election, they were publicly christened the "Brain Trust," and became the central component of the New Deal. This exhibition will focus on the three key members of the Brain Trust—Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and Adolph Berle—and two of the New Deal cabinet members with whom they worked to bring about FDR's radical changes—Frances Perkins and Harry Hopkins. Using contemporary photographs, cartoons, broadsides, articles and newsreels, this exhibition will be supplemented by audio reminisces from the collection of the Columbia University Oral History Research Office.

John Vanderlyn was among the first American painters to spend significant time studying in Paris, and while abroad around 1812 he created his masterpiece, "Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos" (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). The painting was admitted to the Paris Salon that year—a triumph for a young American artist. But triumph turned to despair when Vanderlyn exhibited Ariadne back in the United States in 1815, where audiences considered the nude a shocking subject, and it failed to garner the public acclaim it deserved.

Many artists and critics, however, realized Vanderlyn's great achievement, among them the engraver and aspiring painter Asher B. Durand. In 1831 Durand purchased Vanderlyn's great work, along with an unfinished copy that is now in the Historical Society collection. Durand created an engraving of Vanderlyn's unappreciated masterpiece that was hailed by some as a great achievement, but the American public was still unprepared to accept a nude figure as a subject for art, so the print met a fate similar to the painting that inspired it. But there the two artists' fates diverged: while Vanderlyn became embittered and eventually died in poverty, Durand went on to become an accomplished portraitist and a highly acclaimed landscape painter.

Though legend has it that Santa Claus hails from the North Pole, he was actually a New Yorker who came into the world on West 23rd Street in what is now the trendy Chelsea neighborhood.

The modern Santa was born in the imagination of Clement Clarke Moore, a scholar who penned a whimsical poem about St. Nicholas, the patron of old Dutch New York, for the amusement of his six children at Christmastime. Soon after the publication of "A Visit from St. Nicholas"—popularly known today by its opening line, "Twas the night before Christmas…""—St. Nicholas became a popular feature of American Christmas celebrations. Moore's poem permanently connected St. Nicholas to Christmas, and led to our idea of Santa Claus.

Santa's popularity, appearance and many of the holiday traditions that surround him owe much to the imaginative work of two other New Yorkers: Washington Irving, the creator of Knickerbocker's History of New York, and Thomas Nast, an artist whose drawings of Santa were reproduced all over the country in the years following the Civil War.

To celebrate the winter season, the New-York Historical Society is presenting It Happened Here: The Invention of Santa Claus, an installation tracing the modern image of Santa Claus, the red-suited, pot-bellied descendant of the medieval bishop St. Nicholas of Myra, which emerged only decades after the first Congress met in 1788 in Federal Hall in New York.  The exhibition features Robert Weir's 1837 painting of a rather sly St. Nicholas and Thomas Nast's Harper's Weekly cartoons of Santa. Clement Clarke Moore's desk is on display in the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture.

Hanukkah lamps, or Hannukiot, are candelabra characterized by nine candle branches and used in the ritual candle-lighting associated with the celebration of Hanukkah, the festival that commemorates the 165 B.C.E. liberation of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Hanukkah lamps were made up of eight oil wells or candle-holders, separated from a ninth traditionally used as a shamash, or server, to light the others. These lamps remain distinct from menorahs, which generally have seven candle branches and are not associated with a specific use or holiday. Hanukkah lamps were present in European synagogues by about the 13th century, and often designed in the form of menorahs or as standing table lamps.

The Hanukkah lamp currently on display was made in 1999 by New York City silversmith Bernard Bernstein in his Bronx, New York workshop. A quintessential New Yorker, Bernstein was born and raised in the city, attended the High School of Music and Art, graduated from City College of New York and New York University, and began his career as a teacher of industrial arts in New York and New Jersey schools. He began making silver Judaica in 1959 after taking a class with the German-Israeli silversmith Ludwig Y. Wolpert (1900–1981), a world-renowned expert in Jewish ceremonial metalwork. The lamp was acquired by the New-York Historical Society in 2010 and will be through January  8, 2012. The lamp will also be featured in the forthcoming catalogue and 2012 exhibition, Stories in Sterling.

Timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's sail into the New York bay, The World of Margrieta van Varick explores the life and times of a fascinating woman, her family and possessions. Born in the Netherlands, Margrieta spent the better part of her life at the extremes of the Dutch colonial world: in Malacca (now Malaysia) and Flatbush (now Brooklyn). Arriving in Flatbush with her minister husband Rudolphus in 1686, she set up a textile shop, bringing with her an astonishing array of Asian and European goods. We know about the wealth of objects thanks to an inventory, taken after her death in 1696—and recently rediscovered in the archives of the New-York Historical Society library—documenting her personal belongings and shop goods.

New York Divided: Slavery and the Civil War is the final exhibition in the New-York Historical Society's groundbreaking series on slavery and its impact on the people, landscape, institutions and economy of New York. New York Divided offers a bold look at one of the most challenging periods in New York City's history, when it was torn by the violence of the 1863 draft riots, produced some of the most significant figures in the abolitionist movement, and became the economic engine of the country. Featuring precious historical artifacts, many never displayed before, as well as an online exhibit, the exhibition examines New York's little-known history.

Few non-historians recall that during the "secession winter" of 1860-61, pro-Southern voices (including New York City's Mayor Fernando Wood) called for the City's declaration of independence from both the North and the South, aiming to preserve its role as a great port for both sections. New York was a virtual "Capital of the South," with major commercial and political ties to Southern slavery and, at the same time, a major center of the nation's abolitionist movement. The exhibition traces the evolution of New York's rise to national and global economic power and its relationship to the nation's confrontation with issues of slavery and racial inequality against the backdrop of the Civil War. New York Divided shows how the momentum of emancipation was interrupted by the emergence of the cotton revolution, and enhances the public understanding of the efforts of New Yorkers—black and white—in the struggle for freedom that presaged the civil rights movement of the 20th century.

The exhibition is a follow-up to last fall's groundbreaking, highly acclaimed exhibition, Slavery in New York. This is not the American history most of us grew up learning. Exciting new discoveries have upended our understanding of the national past, including that of New York City and State. New York Divided brings the exciting research recently unearthed by scholars to a broad audience. We hope that visitors to this exhibition will have learned something new from their visit, made important connections to the past and the present-day lives and be inspired to action.