BGuthrie Photos: NY -- NYC -- New-York Historical Society -- Exhibit: New York & The Nation (Level 1)

NY -- NYC -- New-York Historical Society -- Exhibit: New York & The Nation (Level 1):

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[1] NYHSN1_161221_001.JPG	[2] NYHSN1_161221_002.JPG	[3] NYHSN1_161221_004.JPG
[4] NYHSN1_161221_007.JPG	[5] NYHSN1_161221_008.JPG	[6] NYHSN1_161221_013.JPG
[7] NYHSN1_161221_015.JPG	[8] NYHSN1_161221_017.JPG	[9] NYHSN1_161221_018.JPG
[10] NYHSN1_161221_019.JPG	[11] NYHSN1_161221_022.JPG	[12] NYHSN1_161221_024.JPG
[13] NYHSN1_161221_029.JPG	[14] NYHSN1_161221_031.JPG	[15] NYHSN1_161221_034.JPG
[16] NYHSN1_161221_036.JPG	[17] NYHSN1_161221_039.JPG	[18] NYHSN1_161221_041.JPG
[19] NYHSN1_161221_044.JPG	[20] NYHSN1_161221_046.JPG	[21] NYHSN1_161221_048.JPG
[22] NYHSN1_161221_053.JPG	[23] NYHSN1_161221_055.JPG	[24] NYHSN1_161221_059.JPG
[25] NYHSN1_161221_061.JPG	[26] NYHSN1_161221_064.JPG	[27] NYHSN1_161221_069.JPG
[28] NYHSN1_161221_085.JPG	[29] NYHSN1_161221_100.JPG	[30] NYHSN1_161221_103.JPG
[31] NYHSN1_161221_105.JPG	[32] NYHSN1_161221_113.JPG	[33] NYHSN1_161221_115.JPG
[34] NYHSN1_161221_117.JPG	[35] NYHSN1_161221_118.JPG	[36] NYHSN1_161221_122.JPG
[37] NYHSN1_161221_123.JPG	[38] NYHSN1_161221_128.JPG	[39] NYHSN1_161221_131.JPG
[40] NYHSN1_161221_139.JPG	[41] NYHSN1_161221_141.JPG	[42] NYHSN1_161221_144.JPG
[43] NYHSN1_161221_151.JPG	[44] NYHSN1_161221_155.JPG	[45] NYHSN1_161221_157.JPG
[46] NYHSN1_161221_161.JPG	[47] NYHSN1_161221_165.JPG	[48] NYHSN1_161221_167.JPG
[49] NYHSN1_161221_169.JPG	[50] NYHSN1_161221_174.JPG	[51] NYHSN1_161221_176.JPG
[52] NYHSN1_161221_179.JPG	[53] NYHSN1_161221_182.JPG	[54] NYHSN1_161221_185.JPG
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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. NYHSN1_161221_001.JPG: New York and the American Experience While New York is an exceptional metropolis that in many ways resembles no other American city, its foundational principles -- toleration, diversity, aspiration, and individuality -- are those on which the entire nation stands. From New Amsterdam's respect for religious difference to today's headquarters of the United Nations, the ideals of democracy and liberty have always resided at the city's core. This installation explores some of the movements and trends that began in New York and then were amplified in the national story. Each thread -- Commerce, Culture, Expansion, Reform, Immigration, and Slavery -- had enormous impact not only on Gotham but also on the United States as a whole. In examining both historic and contemporary events and people underlying these broad themes, New York's remarkable place within the American story emerges.
2. NYHSN1_161221_002.JPG: Reform Because New York has long been among the world's most ethnically, religiously, and racially diverse places, it has been hospitable to reform groups of every style and description. Abolitionists, labor radicals, anarchists, and communists fought alongside people advocating civil rights, women's rights, and gay rights.
3. NYHSN1_161221_004.JPG: Culture From the Broadway theater district to Carnegie Hall and from Madison Square Garden to Yankee Stadium, New York has long been the home of artists, performers, intellectuals, and athletes of national and international renown. After World War II, they made the city the unofficial cultural capital of the world.
4. NYHSN1_161221_007.JPG: Restaurant matchbooks
5. NYHSN1_161221_008.JPG: Plate, "Jenny Lind, The Swedish Nightingale", 1850-1860 Eyeglass case with Jenny Lind portrait, 1850-1860 Snuffbox with Jenny Lind portrait, 1840-1850
6. NYHSN1_161221_013.JPG: William Henry Walker Collection of profile portraits, ca 1920-1930
7. NYHSN1_161221_039.JPG: The Acorn Duke Riley The Acorn Submarine, 2007 In summer 2007, artist Duke Riley reenacted the Turtle's 1776 mission. He directed "The Acorn," the underwater vessel he built, towards a new British ship invading New York Harbor: the Queen Mary 2, docked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Demonstrating that the harbor "is no less permeable than it was 10 years ago or in 1776," Riley navigated to within a few yards of the cruise ship before his arrest and the confiscation of his sub. Police commissioner Raymond W. Kelly called the incident "marine mischief," adding that nothing suspicious had been recovered "other than the vessel itself." The stunt, however, landed the artist on the front page of New York City's three major newspapers.
8. NYHSN1_161221_041.JPG: The Turtle In early September 1776, George Washington authorized an expedition for an underwater craft to launch an explosive attack on Admiral Howe's flagship, HMS Eagle, moored off Governors Island. Devised by Connecticut inventor and patriot David Bushnell, the egg-shapes, oak submarine was large enough for one occupant, who powered the vessel with an internal crank. Known as "The Turtle," it was equipped with enough air to allow for a thirty-minute submersion and carried a torpedo intended to be launched as close to its target as possible. Ultimately, the charge failed to disengage and the pilot, Sergeant Ezra Lee, was forced to rise to the surface and flee back toward the Brooklyn shore. The bomb exploded on its own in the East River. The incident was the first documented use of a submersible in combat.
9. NYHSN1_161221_044.JPG: Slavery Enslaved people built many of the streets and structures of seventeenth-century New York, and the slave trade and the cotton economy remained important in Manhattan for two centuries. Although New York State finally abolished human bondage in 1827, the city profited from trade with the slave states until the Civil War.
10. NYHSN1_161221_048.JPG: Am I not a woman & a sister 1838
11. NYHSN1_161221_055.JPG: Unidentified artist Amerique, ca 1800-1840
12. NYHSN1_161221_059.JPG: "One Great Face" By the time Muhammad Ali was featured on this advertisement, he was one of the world's most recognizable celebrities. So much so that when Andrew Tisch, president of the Bulova watch company, wanted a "face" for a new promotional campaign -- "One great face deserves another" -- he approached the champ. For the TV version, Ali boisterously quipped, "My face is so pretty I deserve two." ...
13. NYHSN1_161221_064.JPG: The World's Most Valuable Gold Coin The Unique United States 1933 Double Eagle This Double Eagle is one of the most famous and stories coins in the world. In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, the United States struck almost a half million of these twenty-dollar gold pieces. At virtually the same time, in one of his first acts of President, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Executive Order banning the payout of gold, weaning the country off the gold standard. The 1933 Double Eagles, although legally made, were illegal to own and never circulated. In 1934, two examples were sent to the Smithsonian Institution for posterity, and in February 1937 the rest were melted into gold bars that were sent to Fort Knox. In 1944, a 1933 Double Eagle appeared in a New York auction, and the United States Secret Service launched an investigation. It determined that a Mint employee had stolen a number of the coins in 1937 and identified ten coins, of which nine were surrendered or seized. One, however, which had been purchased by King Farouk of Egypt, was beyond reach, and after 1954 it disappeared. In 1996, as part of a Secret Service sting at the Waldorf Astoria, a British coin dealer was arrested while trying to sell a 1933 Double Eagle which he swore had formerly been King Farouk's. In 2001, an out-of-court settlement allowed for the legal sale of this single example (the United States Government claimed as its property any other existing examples). In 2002, the coin was sold at auction for $7,590,020, nearly doubling the previous world record. On display here is that very coin, the only 1933 Double Eagle which may be legally owned by an individual.
14. NYHSN1_161221_069.JPG: In 2004, ten additional 1933 Double Eagles were brought to the attention of the United States government by attorneys representing the daughter of Israel Switt, the Philadelphia dealer who had sold all the known stolen 1933 Double Eagles beginning in 1937. After protracted litigation over ownership, in a trial held in Philadelphia Federal Court in 2011, the unanimous verdict returned by the jury found that the ten coins were stolen and were the property of the United States. In 2012, a separate court finding confirmed the Government's ownership. Since the record-setting 2002 auction, the remarkable history of the 1933 Double Eagle has continued to fascinate, inspiring four books, a documentary produced for the Smithsonian Channel, and most recently an episode of the popular TV show The Closer.
15. NYHSN1_161221_085.JPG: Augustus Saint-Gaudens Saint-Gaudens Double Eagle, 1933 Designed by the renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the coin features the figure of Liberty striding before the Capitol building on the obverse and an eagle in flight on the reverse. The Double Eagle design was first minted in 1907.
16. NYHSN1_161221_103.JPG: Links (2) of the Fort Montgomery Chain in box, 1776-1777
17. NYHSN1_161221_105.JPG: George Washington to Henry Knox Battle plans for the capture of New York, ca July 1, 1781
18. NYHSN1_161221_113.JPG: Joseph Wilton William Pitts, the Elder, First Earl of Chatham, ca 1770
19. NYHSN1_161221_115.JPG: John Wesley Jarvis Thomas Paine, 1809
20. NYHSN1_161221_117.JPG: John Henri Isaac Browere David Hosack, M.D., ca 1825-1830
21. NYHSN1_161221_118.JPG: Francis Guy Tontine Coffee House, New York City, ca 1797
22. NYHSN1_161221_122.JPG: 16 Miles to N. York Milestone, ca 1802
23. NYHSN1_161221_123.JPG: Henry Knox to Lucy Flucker, March 7, 1774 "To the coffee house tomorrow evening? Do you ask me?" wrote Henry Knox flirtatiously to his future wife Lucy Flucker. Although coffee houses were places of business, they were also social venues where people of both sexes could gather to exchange news, gossip, and romance.
24. NYHSN1_161221_128.JPG: Brick from Fraunces Tavern, 1715-1760
25. NYHSN1_161221_131.JPG: Slave shackles intended for a child, ca 1800 This relic of slavery was designed to restrain a young child. Such shackles, called bilboes, came in all sizes and often bound two people together. Bilboes were commonly used on the slave ships that brought millions of Africans to the Americas.
26. NYHSN1_161221_139.JPG: Joseph Wilton Fragment of the equestrian statue of King George III tail), 1770-1776
27. NYHSN1_161221_144.JPG: John Trumbull Seasons Medals, 1798
28. NYHSN1_161221_151.JPG: George Washington inaugural armchair, 1788-1789
29. NYHSN1_161221_155.JPG: Section of wooden water pipe used in New York City, 1799-1850
30. NYHSN1_161221_157.JPG: Death mask of Aaron Burr, 1836
31. NYHSN1_161221_161.JPG: James Taylor to Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, 1804 Statement of Debts Taylor sent this list of debts to Hamilton's estate a few months after Hamilton's fatal duel with Burr. The document totals the cost of several pairs of shoes Hamilton bought for himself and his sons. Nathaniel Pendleton, the executor of Hamilton's will, paid off this debt.
32. NYHSN1_161221_167.JPG: Julius Theodore Melchers Sauk Indian Chief Keokuk, ca 1870
33. NYHSN1_161221_169.JPG: Unidentified artist Unidentified woman, ca 1700-1725
34. NYHSN1_161221_174.JPG: Civilization In 1804, a group of prominent citizens founded the New-York Historical Society to "collect and preserve whatever may relate to the natural, civil, or ecclesiastical History of the United States in general and of this State in particular." During a time when state identities still superseded a national one, the founders' vision of uniquely American narrative was ahead of its time. The Historical Society was just one of hundreds of voluntary organizations in New York during the late Federalist era. Prominent and ordinary citizens alike participated in a flourishing civic culture of political and fraternal clubs, botany and literary societies, and religious and benevolent associations. Their members would create cultural treasures such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and spearhead monumental public works projects like New York's street grid and the Erie Canal.
35. NYHSN1_161221_176.JPG: Politics On July 11, 1804, Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded in a duel with the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr. When Hamilton died the next day, he left a widow in debt and a city in mourning, and Burr found himself disgraced. This tragic event encapsulated the partisan, petty, and frequently scandal-ridden politics of Federalist-era New York. Alongside high-minded debate over national public policy, political leaders dealt in innuendo and personal attacks, using the press to discredit their opponents. As men jockeyed to define their positions within the new nation, women worked to balance their traditional responsibilities with new opportunities -- through education and acceptable public roles in organizations such as private charities.
36. NYHSN1_161221_179.JPG: Capital On April 30, 1789, George Washington became President of the United States on the balcony of Federal Hall in lower Manhattan. Though remarkable, the inauguration was only one of a series of legislative and diplomatic milestones that occurred between 1785 and 1790, when New York served as the national capital. For Washington and his contemporaries, the city was a laboratory in which the ideals that had inspired the Revolution could be tested. It was here that Washington and others began consciously crafting an American identity; that venues like Fraunces Tavern became the first offices for government officials like John Jay and Alexander Hamilton; and that the Native American Cornplanter protested against white western expansion.
37. NYHSN1_161221_182.JPG: Marketplace On May 17, 1792, under a buttonwood tree near Wall Street, twenty-four stockbrokers gathered to sign an agreement that would serve as a precursor to the New York Stock and Exchange Board, the predecessor of the New York Stock Exchange. The brokers would perform their transactions in a second-floor room of the Tontine Coffee House. At the time, financial and political wrangling often took place in taverns and coffeehouses. At the Tontine, self-made men -- both black and white -- traded gossip and conducted business. Ship captains came to share commercial news and to register cargo -- including the human cargo of enslaved men, women, and children. But the mercantile city also was crowded and unsanitary, and frequent outbreaks of infectious disease not only hastened the growth of the city northward, away from the crowded downtown, but also propelled strides forward in medical research and treatment.
38. NYHSN1_161221_185.JPG: Revolution For most of the Revolutionary War, New York was occupied by the British Army and Royal Navy and served as their North American headquarters. Yet prior to becoming a Loyalist stronghold, the city had been a hotbed for Revolutionary agitation and dissent. From pulling down the statue of King George III at Bowling Green, to the treachery of Benedict Arnold, the bravery of Nathan Hale, the misery of the prison ships, or the creation of the Society of the Cincinnati, New York was the setting for some of the most heroic moments of the Revolutionary Era.
39. NYHSN1_161221_199.JPG: New York Rising New York and the Founding of the United States On April 30, 1789, at Federal Hall on Wall Street, George Washington was inaugurated the first president of the United States. The event was but one of a succession of landmark moments in early American history to which New York served as both host and witness. After suffering seven years of British occupation, the city emerged from the Revolution riding a wave of confidence in the prospects of the new American nation. As the first capital of the United States, New York was the site of intellectual debate, and citizens of every description flocked to the city. The port surged with activity. Coffee houses were abuse with the latest commercial news and political maneuvering, and the streets were electric with possibility, ambition, and talent. Even as it rebuilt an infrastructure that had been reduced to rubble and a population decimated by war, the city quickly developed into the leading center of maritime commerce, of information, and of an expanding political culture. In this climate, members of the revolutionary generation founded an organization that would "collect and preserve whatever may relate" to the history of the United States and of New York in particular. The aims of the New-York Historical Society were national, its inspiration local. Its collection would tell the story of the city's role in the new nation and of its founding fathers; it also would come to tell of Native American leaders, abolitionists, pioneering women, and a city of free New Yorkers who together forged as American civilization and its most exemplary metropolis. This installation draws from the collections of New York's oldest museum to illuminate an era in which the histories of the city and the United States unfolded together. Arranged in the manner of the "salon-style" display popular in the nineteenth century, the exhibit is enhanced by twenty-first century technology that enables visitors to look beyond the iconic images and events to see the complex and sometimes surprising contexts in which they occurred.
40. NYHSN1_161221_203.JPG: Keg from Erie Canal celebration, ca 1825
41. NYHSN1_161221_207.JPG: William John Coffee DeWitt Clinton, 1817
Description of Subject Matter: New York & The Nation in The Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History
Ongoing
Collection Highlights and New York and the American Experience
Explore the story of New York and America in the Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History. Highlights include:

Mounted on the building’s original 1904 columns are grand digital screens displaying a continuous, thematically co-ordinated slide show of treasures from the New-York Historical Society’s collections. The west face of the columns features individual stations, incorporating interactive touch screens and museum artifacts, presenting six themes in American history which are found interwoven with the history of New York. Projected on dramatic flat screens affixed to six structural columns, the array of objects and images functions as visual signage that demonstrates to our visitors the depth of New-York Historical's collections.
Funding for the columns provided by Bloomberg

New York Rising:
The showpiece of the space occupies a forty-two-foot wall facing Central Park West, and illustrates New York’s critical contribution to the founding of the United States. Covering the period from the American Revolution through to the New-York Historical Society’s 1804 founding, a contemporary interpretation of a nineteenth-century salon-style display uses some of New-York Historical’s most treasured objects and cutting-edge technology to convey the historical narrative.
Out of the ashes of the British occupation of New York and Evacuation Day in November 1783 at the American Revolution’s end, New York emerged as the first capital of the United States. It was where George Washington was inaugurated the first president; where the Northwest Ordinance, mandating westward expansion, was debated and signed in 1787; where the essays comprising the Federalist Papers advocating the ratification of the U.S. Constitution were written (by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay); where the First Congress sat in 1789; and where the Bill of Rights was introduced. As the place where Hamilton conceived of an American financial system, New York also became the American business capital of the country. Against the philosophical and intellectual framework of the Enlightenment, the New Yorkers who participated in the country’s founding were immersed in an often-fractious atmosphere of debate, intellectual discourse, and political experimentation. In 1804, as this historical moment was passing, the New-York Historical Society was founded, motivated by an expressed need to collect items pertaining to the history of the state and of the nation, as well as the mission to capture and interpret not only the revolutionary and Federal eras, but the years to come. In so doing, New-York Historical deliberately participated in the creation of a self-consciously American culture.

Leah and Michael Weisberg Monumental Treasures Wall:
A 10-foot-high display case in the Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History showcases large-scale maps, architectural drawings, documents and other works on paper that previously could not be exhibited because of their size and light sensitivity.

History Under Your Feet:
Under visitors’ feet, the Smith Gallery also features nine porthole-like floorcases displaying objects found by avocational archaeologists and other professionals seeking history below the ground of New York City. Objects include arrowheads, military buttons, bullets and a colossal oyster shell excavated at an extant nineteenth-century tavern.
Funding for History Under Your Feet provided by Con Edison

here is new york:
New-York Historical also displays a rotating selection from the approximately 6,200 photographs comprising the powerful here is new york collection of images taken in New York on and in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The collection echoes the Founding New Yorkers theme of resilience, renewal and transformation emerging from the ashes of catastrophic events. Accompanying the photography installation will be a large fragment of a fire truck destroyed during the 9/11 attack.

Pop Shop ceiling by Keith Haring:
A ceiling mural by Keith Haring hangs above the admissions desk. The work is taken from the interior of the Pop Shop, which Haring opened in SoHo in 1986 to sell shirts, posters, and other merchandise reproducing his artwork. He painted the shop’s entire interior in black-and-white. The mural was a gift from the Keith Haring Foundation upon the store’s closing in 2005.
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