Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

Best known for his seminal Birds of America, Audubon’s prints are among the world’s most recognized images.

A very large letterpress broadside for three intramural Yale boat races on Lake Saltonstall in East Haven, Connecticut. Participants rowed in racing shells, double sculls, and wherries, contesting for cash prizes. Excursion trains from downtown New Haven cost 50 cents, and a band enlivened the afternoon.

This double-sided ledger page from the Hudson River Rail Road Company includes signatures by stockholders for receipt of payments for the 11^th and 12^th dividends, paid in October 1867 and April 1868, respectively. The company paid its shareholders 4 percent dividends on capital stock twice each year—in April and October. This page is signed twice by Cornelius Vanderbilt, once for the October 1867 dividends on his own 22,740 shares and again for those of his son William H. Vanderbilt’s 2,133 shares. Cornelius Vanderbilt’s shares generated $90,960, while those of his son yielded $8,532.

These two pages include the names of 42 individuals and companies that were stockholders in the Hudson River Railroad. Most entries are for from one to a few hundred shares of stock, but Work, Davis & Barton owned 3,000 shares of stock. One of Vanderbilt’s rivals for control of the Erie Railroad, James Fisk Jr. (1835-1872), later asserted that Work, Davis, and Barton held the shares on behalf of Vanderbilt.

This October, 1864 issue of Harper’s Weekly has a magnificent centerfold engraving of President Lincoln—perfect for framing—with a patriotic poem below.

“For in this struggle vast The liberties of man shall rise or fall, And unborn generations to us call… The laborer on England’s soil, The peasants that in Austria toil, The serfs, that over Russia’s plains Are dropping now their long worn chains…”

On or around New Year’s Day, some newspapers printed “carriers' addresses” with an appeal for a holiday gift or donation from subscribers. Newspaper carriers were often the printer’s apprentices, sometimes younger than teenagers.

Report of the Select Committee Relative to the Soldier’s National Cemetery, Together with the Accompanying Documents, as Reported to the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, March 31, 1864.

A rare first day of publication newspaper, with Lincoln’s timeless embodiment of American ideals prominently placed. From November 20, the day after the Address, this original issue starts with Edward Everett’s speech and a report on the ceremonies on page one, and includes Lincoln’s speech on the final page (making it possible to display both together).

A monumental Frederick Douglass Civil War recruiting broadside.

This most dramatic and important recruiting poster signals a seismic shift in policy. African American men had joined Union forces in limited numbers from the start of the Civil War, but it took Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, to officially allow, encourage, and remove barriers to their enlistment.

This bold broadside, published in Boston, consists of an overview map of the entire eastern United States, with free states hand-colored red; maps of Baltimore; the District of Columbia; Norfolk Harbor and Hampton Roads with Fort Monroe. The largest maps, extending half the width of the broadside each are of Charleston Harbor with details of its fortifications and of the Pensacola Navy Yard and Fort Pickens. The broadside also includes images of Andrew Jackson with the quotation, “The union must & shall be preserved”; Abraham Lincoln; Winfield Scott, with the quotation “Please God, I will fight many years for this Union, and that too, under the protective folds of the star spangled banner”; and Major Robert Anderson, “The Hero of Sumter” and Routes and Distances by both steamboat and railroad from Boston and Washington to various parts of the nation.

In May 1858, Martin M. Lawrence (1807-1859) took a photograph of John Brown at his studio at 381 Broadway in New York City, where he had worked as a daguerreotypist since 1842. He took it at the request of Dr. Thomas H. Webb (1801-1866) of Boston, Secretary of the New England Emigrant Aid Company. In November 1859, shortly before Brown’s execution, an engraving based on this photograph appeared on the cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper.