Prints for the Parlor: A Catalog of Engravings and Gift Book Illustrations, 1821-1876

FAIN: PW-50353-09

American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, MA 01609-1634)
Georgia B. Barnhill (Project Director: August 2008 to November 2009)
Lauren B. Hewes (Project Director: November 2009 to June 2011)

The cataloging and digitization of 600 separately published engravings and 2,700 engravings in gift books and literary annuals published from the 1820s through the 1870s.

This proposal seeks funding for cataloging and digitizing separately published American engravings published between 1820 and 1877 and engraved illustrations and related text in gift books issued in the same period. This body of materials is relatively inaccessible to historians of art, literature, publishing, culture, and society; yet it was this visual material that helped inform Americans about many aspects of their lives, including American history, religious iconography, European and American landscape and cities. Engravings gave physical presence to political, religious, and military leaders as well as providing visual information about social reforms. Likewise, gift book illustrations were purveyors of visual information on many topics. The volumes containing them were kept at hand for casual viewing on parlour tables and so had significant impact on their viewers. Scholars in many disciplines will find these records and digitized images helpful.

Associated Products

Shakespeare in the Parlor (Exhibition)
Title: Shakespeare in the Parlor
Curator: Jaclyn Penny
Abstract: This online exhibit, generated using images from the Prints in the Parlor cataloging and digitization project, considers the ways William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was pictured inside the covers of literary annuals and gift books in the nineteenth-century.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Printsinparlor/shakespeare/index.htm
Primary URL Description: This is an online exhibition at the American Antiquarian Society website of selected materials cataloged with an NEH grant.

Prints in the Parlor: Gift Book and Annual Illustrations (Web Resource)
Title: Prints in the Parlor: Gift Book and Annual Illustrations
Author: Jaclyn Penny
Abstract: This is a tutorial on how to access images cataloged with this NEH grant via hyperlinks embedded in the online catalog records of AAS.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Printsinparlor/online.htm
Primary URL Description: AAS website link

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