The Things They Collected "In Pursuit of a Vision: Two Centuries
of Collecting at the American Antiquarian Society," an
exhibition at the Grolier Club, September 12-November 17, 2012.
Accompanying catalogue published by the American Antiquarian
Society, 2012. After musing among the old buildings and
tombstones of Boston on a hot August day in 1834, Christopher
Columbus Baldwin, librarian for the American Antiquarian
Society, exclaimed in his diary, "How much of fashion, wealth,
wit, and learning are now buried in oblivion!" This statement
served as a rallying call for a unique rescue mission on a grand
scale. A mission to rescue the present—to thwart the obscuring
powers of time and preserve the materials of "fashion, wealth,
wit, and learning" for future generations. Baldwin, along with a
host of other individuals, made this mission their life's work
and in so doing built the remarkable collections of the American
Antiquarian Society (AAS). Their stories, as well as the things
they collected, were recently d