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History comes alive for the whole family with Living History Days at the New-York Historical Society! Do you want to know what life was like in the 18th century?

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Put on gloves, pick up a magnifying glass and sift through the stuff of life in 19th-century New York City. Join urban archaeologist Joan Geismar for a fascinating, hands-on look at the contents of the backyard privy pit of the early 19th-century James Brown Inn on Spring Street(now called the Ear Inn). Broken plates, cups and bottles, oyster shells and shoe leather are just some of the clues to how people lived in the past - what they ate, what they could buy and what they chose to buy, and what they threw away.

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Among the maps that George Washington owned was British military engineer John Montresor's A Plan of the City of New-York, surveyed in 1766. The map provided Washington with detailed information about the streets and hills of Lower Manhattan as he fortified the city against a British assault in 1776. The map was also useful for planning Washington's triumphant entry into New York on November 25, 1783 as the British ended their 70- year occupation and evacuated the city.

Giving

Over the past twenty-five years, American constitutional history has been de-emphasized in favor of "trendier" subjects at the nation's universities and colleges. As historian Gordon Wood has noted, "most universities have long since given up teaching undergraduate courses in American constitutional history, and most of those few remaining professors who do teach it are retiring and not being replaced with constitutional scholars” (New York Review of Books, February 23, 2006).

The Institute for Constitutional History sponsors or co-sponsors a variety of events during the academic year. Here is a partial list of upcoming and recent events:

Upcoming Events