New-York Historical Society Teen Historians

The traveling salesman was known for his effective and sometimes dubious sales pitches used to draw in a customer. Before brand names and huge company logos, the travelling salesman was the face of small local companies. The travelling salesman usually travelled outside of large cities and into more suburban areas. These salesmen valued the importance…

I am currently exploring the history of the Tiffany Lamps including the inspiration which led to its creation, the workers, the design of the lamps, the impact the lamps have had on history, and the changes that have taken place in Tiffany studios. Tiffany Studios is controversially believed to have stemmed from Tiffany and Co….

Abraham Manievich’s painting, the Bronx, with its cubo-futuristic style, contains various perspectives for exploration. I am focusing on the borough’s history, stream of immigration, and the transcendence that it experienced from a glorified, wealthy metropolis to a dilapidated one. During the 1920s, an era of wealth and culture in the United Sates, Jewish immigrants from…

Over the summer I will be researching a specific object at the New York Historical Society.  Along with several others, I am looking at the dragonfly lamp made by the Tiffany Company.  Specifically, I want to look into the role of women in the design and production of the lamp.  One of the most interesting…

  For the remainder of this internship, my group and I are focusing on one of the most modern pieces in the New York Historical Society’s collection: a “bathroom” door covered in graffiti. With the help of my fellow group members, I was able to decipher some of the tags on Jack Stewart’s graffiti door….

                 I am currently researching an item in the Historical Society known as the “Draft Wheel.” The Draft Wheel was used in the New York City draft lotteries during the Civil War. This draft is also infamous because it resulted in the worst urban riots in our nation’s…

This summer at the New York Historical Society internship program, I, along with two other interns, am studying Abraham Manievich’s “The Bronx” painting. My focus is on the style in which it was done, which is known as cubo-futurist. Futurism was not just a style of  painting, it was a philosophy that touched visual art,…

    My artifact is Howard Thain’s “The Great White Way,” a 1925 painting depicting an evening in Times Square. The New Amsterdam Theater is an edifice of major importance in studying the history of the early Broadway musical. Though not visible in the painting, the New Amsterdam is located just behind One Times Square, the…

I am currently studying about the Graffiti Door that is displayed in the New-York Historical Museum, and the origin and development of graffiti. With roots in Philadelphia, Graffiti art spread all across the United States almost spontaneously. It was at first used in the 1960s by gang activists to mark territories. In later years, however,…