The Hyphen

The Hyphen

From the New-York Historical Society, a journey deep into the collections of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library.

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Margaret Bourke-White never let an important moment escape her. A pioneer in the field of photojournalism, she worked across genres and was a frequent contributor to LIFE and Fortune magazines.

By 1930, Bourke-White moved into offices on the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building. She befriended the stainless steel gargoyles that lived outside of her window (affectionately nicknamed “Bill” and “Min”), and even found opportunity to take her camera out onto one of the Art Deco beasts to capture images of New York City’s changing skyline.

The Patricia D. Klingenstein Library holds a number of Bourke-White’s letters from this era, all part of the Time Inc. records. What they reveal is a businesswoman and creator at work, battling to preserve the pay and credit she felt she deserved. 

On view now at the New-York Historical Society: Cocktails at Three Paces: A Closer Lens on Margaret-Bourke White

Copy of the Time Inc. company newsletter “FYI” from July 2, 1965.

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Could this floridly written recette extraordinaire for $7.5 million francs really be a receipt for the Louisiana Purchase? Read on for an investigation into a mysterious 1804 document that one of our librarians happened upon in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library collection.

More on the blog: Recette Extraordinaire: The Paper that “Purchased” the Louisiana Purchase

Receipt from the Public Treasury of France, March 29, 1804.

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A copy of HBO On Air—a viewing guide for subscribers—from November 1975 featuring Burt Reynolds for his comedy W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings. Multiple issues of the magazine are held in the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library’s Time Inc. records

By late 1976, HBO had 243 affiliates in 35 states, which served 500,000 subscribers 12 hours of programming a day.

Read more on the blog: HBO in the Archives

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Dip into the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library’s Time Inc. records to experience the first days of Home Box Office, a new channel that launched to 365 subscribers in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, one stormy night in 1972. 

“On their screens that evening, an earnest young man appeared. Welcoming the viewers to the debut of Home Box Office was Gerald ‘Jerry’ Levin, programming vice president for the new channel. He introduced the evening’s two offerings: a hockey game between Vancouver and New York and a film starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda. In retrospect, it now seems more than fitting that the film was titled Sometimes a Great Notion.”
The First Ten Years, a glossy booklet created for HBO staffers as they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the network in 1982

Read more on the blog: HBO in the Archives

The cover for the February 1973 entertainment calendar that was sent to HBO subscribers.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

The motto (thought not officially) of the United States Postal Service was suggested by one of the architects of the James A. Farley Building, which serves as New York City’s main post office. The inscription can be seen carved across the entablature on the building:

“The firm of McKim, Mead & White designed the New York General Post Office, which opened to the public on Labor Day in 1914. One of the firm’s architects, William Mitchell Kendall, was the son of a classics scholar and read Greek for pleasure. He selected the “Neither snow nor rain …” inscription, which he modified from a translation by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University, and the Post Office Department approved it.”

-Postal Service Mission and “Motto”

The Angarum, to which the original Greek line refers, were the royal riding post in the Persian Empire during the Achaemenid period, praised by Herodotus in his history of the Persian Wars, for their speed and dedication.

photographs, from top:  George P. Hall & Son, Manhattan: United States General Post Office, Eighth Avenue between W. 32nd Street and W. 31st Street, undated. (detail); Frederick Kelly, Post Office, New York City, April 19, 1962.

nyhistory:

After emancipation, New York State continued to disenfranchise Black voters by requiring that Black people—and only Black people—own a certain amount of property in order to vote. This petition, signed by several New Yorkers, asks for an amendment to the state constitution “abolishing for ever all distinctions of color or race as a qualification for franchise, and placing all the inhabitants of this State upon a footing of PERFECT EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW.”

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York. 1866. Broadside, SY 1866 no.5. New-York Historical Society.

Take the L train…with a lot of unattended children! 

Whether they were actually playing (or just posing) in the excavations for the subway itself; or merely hanging out on their block, the recently uploaded Subway Construction Photograph Collection. Contract Four. Route 8, 1915-1932 is particularly rich with images of children.

nyhistory:

Browning Photograph Collection, PR 009, New-York Historical Society.

Anyone else having this dream?

[March of Time, Radio Index], Time Inc. Annex Files, MS 3009.RG 39. New-York Historical Society.

For more on the March of Time, read our latest From the Stacks blog post.