The Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America 57th Annual Meeting   Rutgers Presbyterian Church 236 West 73rd Street New York, NY 10023 Tickets Here!! All are welcome at Our Annual Meeting, Awards Showcase, and Reception! Current members, new members, and guests are invited to join us at the historic Rutgers Presbyterian Church on […]

Women, Egyptology, and Gilded Age New York   The Center at West Park 165 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 Tickets Here!! Women built American Egyptology. When Britons Amelia Edwards and Kate Bradbury arrived in New York in November of 1889, the first thing they saw was a still-copper-hued Statue of Liberty. They had […]

Rediscovering Architect-Trailblazer E. G. W. Dietrich   The Center at West Park 165 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 $7.18 members / $12.51 general public Tickets Here!! Ernest George Washington Dietrich, AIA (1857–1924) is one of the most prolific yet least studied architects of his generation. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dietrich first attracted […]

Keeping It Real: How Bob Shaw, Production Designer of "The Gilded Age," Resurrects Nineteenth-Century New York   Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, NY 10065 $50.00 members (plus fees)* $70.00 general public (plus fees) $30 live stream (plus fees) Tickets Here!! From the opulent mansions of Fifth Avenue to the original interiors of […]

A presentation by Richard Guy Wilson, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Architectural History at University of Virginia and Director of the Newport Summer School A major American design creation in the later 19th century was the stained glass window. The work of John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany pioneered opalescent stained glass but there were […]

Scholar Sara Catterall will discuss her new biography of the oft-misinterpreted activist Amelia Bloomer. Amelia Bloomer (1818–1894) is best known now for the garments that bear her name. But rational dress was “but an incident” in her life and career, and the last thing she wanted to be remembered for. From a village childhood and […]

The Victorian Society New York’s 2025 Emerging Scholars winners will shed light on little-known yet influential aspects of Gilded Age history, literature, international trade, and design. Center at West Park 165 West 86th Street New York, NY 10024 Register Sarah Egan, a graduate student at the Bard Graduate Center, will discuss Illinois education advocate Clara […]

All are welcome at our annual meeting, awards showcase, and reception! Current members, new members, and guests are invited to join us at our Annual Meeting, where we will vote in new board members, showcase this year's award winners, and hear our reports for 2024-25. Celebratory reception to follow on a 36th floor's outdoor terrace […]

Pat Hoerth Batchelder, author of the new book Evelyn Beatrice Longman, The Woman Who Sculpted Golden Boy, Thomas Edison, and Other Monuments, has mined long-forgotten archives to explore how Longman arose from Midwestern poverty to portray luminaries and allegorical figures in stone and bronze for public and private spaces nationwide. Longman navigated an art world where hardly […]

Join the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America (Victorian Society New York) for its annual Margot Gayle Fundraiser! This year we will enjoy a private tour of an exceptional Brooklyn brownstone. Built in 1862 in the affluent neighborhood of Fort Greene, bordering downtown Brooklyn, it was designed as an upper-class residence featuring large […]

Join popular tour guide Stephanie Azzarone for a fascinating tour of Riverside Drive—best known for elegance and quiet. But behind its serene facades lie secrets, from intriguing architectural details to headline-making tales. This in-person tour will take a close look at the avenue’s most notable buildings—many of them built around the turn of the century—and […]

Join us this Bastille Day for a fun and enlightening talk about “French Flats,” which first began to appear in New York not long after the Civil War, and by the end of the 19th century had completely changed the way New Yorkers lived. Until the late 19th century, no New Yorker of means lived […]

Tour the exhibition Alexander Jackson Davis: Designer of Dreams with the Director of Lyndhurst and enjoy a private tea in the Carriage House! Lyndhurst is a National Historic Landmark located on the banks of the Hudson River in Tarrytown and is considered the masterpiece of architect Alexander Jackson Davis. Our private tour of the mansion […]

In Conversation with Anthony C. Wood and Robert Jaeger on Wood's new book Servant of Beauty: Landmarks, Secret Love and the Uniminaged Life of an Unsung New York Hero Anthony Wood, award-winning preservationist and author of Servant of Beauty: Landmarks, Secret Love and the Unimagined Life of an Unsung New York Hero (Bloomsbury, 2025), and […]

Scholars Kate Culkin and Patricia Valenti will discuss the role of biography in recovering the lives and contributions of 19th-century women, in conjunction with the publication of Culkin’s Emerson’s Daughters: Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and Their Family Legacy. Ellen Tucker Emerson and Edith Emerson Forbes were the daughters of Lidian Jackson and the […]

In celebration of the late Jeffrey A. Kroessler's book Rural County, Urban Borough: A History of Queens (Rutgers U. Press, 2025), his widow, Laura Heim, will discuss with Eve Kahn and Frampton Tolbert the unique production process and engaging content of this first comprehensive, scholarly, and readable history of the great borough of Queens. Laura […]

Independent scholar and New York Times contributor Eve M. Kahn in conversation with scholar and podcaster Carl Raymond about her new book. Kahn will explore her seven-year Zoe Anderson Norris book journey: the strangest coincidences, most frustrating roadblocks, and most heartbreaking, luminous, and funniest details uncovered on the trail. Zoe Anderson Norris (1860–1914) was a […]

Join us for a walk through Prospect Park, where we'll discover lost features and why their disappearance matters. “Finding Prospect Park,” a historical discovery tour sponsored by the Victorian Society New York, will take you through the northern half of Prospect Park, Olmsted and Vaux’s masterpiece. A brief introduction to the park’s history and design […]

In 1870, Alfred Beach secretly built a subway under Broadway, only to have Boss Tweed find out—and kill it. Matthew Algeo, author of the new book New York's Secret Subway: The Underground Genius of Alfred Beach and the Origins of Mass Transit (Island Press), will tell the incredible true story of New York’s first subway, […]