navAcquisitions
A thriving acquisitions program allows the American Antiquarian Society curators to actively add material through gift and purchase according to the AAS collecting policies. Collecting is comprehensive through 1820, somewhat selective through 1876, and representative only in specific areas where AAS collects material through 1900. Multiple editions, variant copies, and amateur publications are particularly prized.
About the Building of the Collection
The Society’s bicentennial exhibition, In Pursuit of a Vision: Two Centuries of Collecting at the American Antiquarian Society, celebrates the generosity and farsightedness of some of the many collectors, book dealers, and librarians who have, each in his or her own way, contributed to the greatness of collection.
"One day I am visited by a collector of ordination sermons; the next, by a collector of 4th of July orations; then comes a collector of geography; another wants religious newspapers; another wants every book printed in New York before 1700. I accommodate myself to all; for I want every thing and collect every thing, and I have more zeal than the whole of them: and in this way I am kept very busy."
