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, […]

Scholars and performers will celebrate a new book about Black and Irish competitive dancers in early-19th-century New York City. Stony Brook University professor April Masten, author of the new book Diamond and Juba: The Raucous World of 19th-Century Challenge Dancing (U. of Illinois Press), and other experts will discuss the lives of two antebellum dancers and perform works […]

In Knickerbocker’s History of New York, first published on Saint Nicholas Day 1809, Washington Irving introduced the Dutch Saint Nicholas as patron saint and folk hero, changed his appearance, and manipulated his character traits. This presentation will follow the Nicholas celebration from its early European origin through its arrival in New Netherland and continued observance […]

Scholar Geoff Wisner will lecture on the Civil War diaries of George Templeton Strong, which offer unique insights and first-person encounters with Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Edwin M. Stanton, and others—told with Strong’s wicked humor. Beginning in 1835, at age 15, George Templeton Strong started writing in his diary, which totaled about four million words […]

Join the Museum of the City of New York, The Heckscher Museum of Art, and the Victorian Society New York for an exploration of 19th-century sculpture and public space through the work and life of Emma Stebbins and her partner, actor Charlotte Cushman, centering Angel of the Waters at Bethesda Fountain as both a monumental artwork […]

Lockwood-Mathews mansion is a National Historic Landmark and one of the earliest and most significant Second Empire Style country houses in the United States. Located in Norwalk, Connecticut, Lockwood-Mathews recently re-opened after being closed for a two-year renovation project. VSNY attendees have been offered a rare opportunity to visit the museum before public hours, allowing […]

Join the Victorian Society New York for our annual Margot Gayle Benefit Tour. This year we are privileged to visit the historic National Fine Art Foundry Building. A private residence since 1977, the brownstone was erected in 1848 and was used for everything from a boarding house to a piano factory. It was named the […]

As part of our Emerging Scholars program, the Victorian Society New York supports scholarship about every aspect of 19th-century and early 20th-century culture, including architecture, literature, theater, fine and decorative art, immigration, economics, politics, education, gender roles, reform movements, music, fashion, and food. Topics for recent event winners have included globetrotting 19th-century cabinetmakers and early […]

As part of our Emerging Scholars program, the Victorian Society New York supports scholarship about every aspect of 19th-century and early 20th-century culture, including architecture, literature, theater, fine and decorative art, immigration, economics, politics, education, gender roles, reform movements, music, fashion, and food. Topics for recent event winners have included globetrotting 19th-century cabinetmakers and early […]