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- Civil War envelopes, 1861-1865
- Most pictorial envelopes approximately 3 x 5 1/2 inches. Printed or embossed with caricatures, allegories, slogans, portraits, etc. relating to Civil War events and personalities. The vast majority is Union-oriented, for example of George Washington, Jefferson Davis, Benjamin Franklin, or Abraham Lincoln. State seals figure prominently, as do flags. Other significant topics in the collection are animals (especially the eagle), liberty, soldiers, sailors, and Uncle Sam., The New-York Historical Society's Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections owns approximately 3,000 unused envelopes dating from the Civil War years. Of these, 490 were scanned for this project. Most were produced by New York printers between 1861 and 1865. Some are quite crude; others are beautifully designed and executed, many in color, some gilt. Some envelopes show portraits or caricatures of politicians. A significant New York printer, Charles Magnus, is represented by thirty-six envelopes, many showing Civil War camp scenes derived from photographs.
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- Civil War posters, 1861-1865
- The 304 Civil War Posters in this collection consist predominantly of recruiting posters, as well as advertisements for public meetings, auctions and social functions pertaining to the Civil War. This collection includes posters from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine. Within the collection are posters for artillery, cavalry and infantry divisions of the United States Army, as well as state National Guard regiments and local regiments such as the Camden Zouaves, West Jersey Rifles and the Mozart Regiment. Many of these posters were used in targeted recruitment campaigns, calling upon African-Americans, Irish-Americans and German-Americans to enlist in the Union Army (a number of the posters are written in German). Many of the recruitment posters encourage men to avoid the draft and proactively sign up with a regiment, advertising high bounties, complimentary uniforms and pensions for the families of those who enlist. The posters use patriotic iconography featuring Lady Liberty, George Washington and Union soldiers, in addition to eagles, cavalrymen, liberty caps and American flags.
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- Revolutionary Era broadsides, 1775-1783
- The New-York Historical Society has an extensive collection of broadsides that document the American Revolution and the tumultuous events leading up to it. Broadsides, the technical term for any document, large or small, printed on one side of a single sheet of paper, served as posters, handbills, official proclamations, advertisements, and conveyors of ballads and poetry. They were plastered on walls, distributed by hand or read out loud and are especially important for the study of the Revolutionary period. At a time when newspapers were published one or two times a week, broadsides served as the immediate vehicle for late-breaking news., New-York Historical Society