New-York Historical Society Teen Historians

Sumin Chen, Grade 11 9-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc, commonly referred to as “Napalm Girl,” was the centerpiece of  Associated Press Photographer Nick Ut’s photo. The Pulitzer Prize winning photo depicts children fleeing from a Napalm bombing during the Vietnam War. The bomb was mistakenly dropped by South Vietnamese Air Forces after being ordered by…

James Kuntz, 10th grade Student Historian Often referred to as the “first television war,” the Vietnam War was the first instance in which footage of the war was disseminated to the American people on a regular basis. During the war, there were over 600 journalists covering the events in Vietnam. This heightened media presence made…

Alanna Ross, 12th grade Student Historian This popular 1950 magazine cover depicts one of the most feared threats of the Cold War. Illustrated here is the immediately recognizable New York City skyline covered by a mushroom cloud. The sky is overcast by a gray smog, and smoke has spread over the entire city. The mushroom…

Was it time to go to war? The question of U.S. neutrality in World War I occupied the minds of millions of Americans in the beginning months of the Great War. After the commencement of the First World War in 1914, the question of American participation in the predominantly European war had not been answered….

Written by Tenzing Tashishar, 12th grade Student Historian This dish is a hexagonal earthenware piece with floral prints molded around the rim of the plate, painted over in green, blue, and burgundy. A burgundy line is painted along the edge of the plate. The center features one of Benjamin Franklin’s most iconic maxims and an illustration…

Written by Lee Shapiro, 12th Grade Student Historian As I sit down and scroll through my phone and television, I am usually bombarded by advertisements. Kylie Jenner is promoting her new lip care line; Peyton Manning is singing the State Farm theme song; and Sarah Palin is promoting Donald Trump. While I sit, I think…

Written by Hanna Bregman, 10th grade Teen Historian Lady Liberty stands in the center of this painting; behind her is a backdrop of a cool colored sky. At her bottom right there is a bust of George Washington engraved with a quote by Henry Lee III at Washington’s funeral, “First in War, First in Peace, First…

Written by Tristan Genetta, Teen Leader   This summer the Teen Leaders at the New-York Historical Society were responsible for creating an activity for the pop-up exhibition, Audubon: Birdman for a Fledgling Nation, on Governors Island. This map represents one boundary of human contact with the western side of North America in the 19th century. For…

Written by Liana Chow, Teen Leader I was appalled to see two kids slumping on a bench in Paris’s Louvre Museum last month and sullenly tapping on their phones. When I returned to New York for my Teen Leader internship with the New-York Historical Society, my goal was to prevent the same thing from happening in…