John Stuart Gordon, curator of Yale University Art Gallery's Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power About this event Gold’s warm glow, resistance to corrosion, and rarity have made it a preferred material for objects meant to convey prestige, authority, or devotion. This talk by John Stuart Gordon, curator of Yale University Art Gallery's current show, Gold […]

An African American Innovator in the Old Newspaper Business About this event Victorian New Yorkers and their institutions did not consider old newspapers valuable and did not reliably save them. Researchers and others who needed outdated newspapers and magazines had little chance of finding what they wanted unless they happened to learn of Robert M. […]

Victorian Society New York’s annual Emerging Scholars About this event Winners of the Victorian Society New York’s annual Emerging Scholars contest will speak on a fascinating array of topics. Hannah Morand, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, will analyze a 120-foot-long panoramic painting of a U.S. Army victory at Gettysburg, shown in the […]

  All are welcome at the Victorian Society New York Annual Meeting, Awards Showcase and reception! Tickets include a one-year membership. About this event IN PERSON Presentation & Reception The Church of the Holy Trinity 316 East 88th Street New York, NY 10128 Thursday, June 23rd, 2022 6:30 p.m.- 8:30 p.m.   After a two-year […]

How Women Revolutionized Marriage and Found Freedom on the American Frontier This is an in-person lecture at: Jefferson Market Library 425 6th Avenue New York, NY 10011 For a woman traveling without her husband in the late nineteenth century, there was only one reason to take the train all the way to Sioux Falls, South […]

Macabre scrapbooks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art This is an in-person lecture at: Jefferson Market Library 425 6th Avenue New York, NY 10011 Two macabre scrapbooks preserved in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art are packed with century-old obituaries of artists who died tragically by suicide, foul play, disease, or in bizarre accidents. Jim […]

In Partnership with Friends of the Urban Organ at the Basilica of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral 261 Mott Street, New York Ny Thursday, December 15th 6:30 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. Tickets Here! For Victorian Society Members, be sure to use the promocode: "VICTORIAN" at checkout for 50% off your tickets.  Victorian-era carols, seasonal music and readings […]

Online talk with Tania June Sammons (New Date!) Wednesday, January 4th 6:30 p.m.- 8:00 p.m. Spanning the 19th century, New York’s influence on Savannah reached nearly everyone in the city and surrounding area, including the enslaved men and women whose labor facilitated the cotton industry before the Civil War. However, the physical interaction between the […]

Register for this Online Lecture Here The American Pre-Raphaelites launched the earliest reform movement in the history of American art. Founded in 1863, in the midst of the American Civil War, the movement comprised politically radical, abolitionist artists, joined by like-minded architects, critics, and scientists. In the decade that followed, the American Pre-Raphaelites executed paintings, […]

IN-PERSON Conversation & Tea Reception with host Carl Raymond & Guest Ben Miller at Salmagundi Club 47 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY Thursday, February 16th 3:30pm Tickets Here!  Reservations Required. VSNY is pleased to co-sponsor a tea-time conversation with our friends at the Salmagundi Club, The Royal Oak Foundation and The Magazine Antiques. About the […]

Free Cross-Promoted Lecture at the Jefferson Market Library: Register for this event here. This will be an in-person lecture held at: Jefferson Market Library425 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10011 In the years after emancipation (1865), formerly enslaved Americans took out newspaper ads by the thousands, looking for family members and other loved […]

Dr. Tara Green discusses Alice Dunbar-Nelson's early years in New Orleans and Brooklyn from her new book Register for this Online Lecture Here By the time Alice Dunbar-Nelson published her first volume of fiction and poems in 1895, she had begun her career as an English teacher and respectable activist. It was also in that […]

Submissions Deadline March 10th, 2023 Event will be held evening of May 10th, 2023 in NYC, 6:00 p.m.- 7:30 p.m. The Victorian Society New York invites university student historians and recent graduates to submit proposals by March 10 for its annual "Emerging Scholars" evening event on May 10, 2023. The nonprofit VSNY (vicsocny.org), founded in […]

The Margot Gayle Fund for the Preservation of Victorian Heritage was established in 2003 to honor Margot Gayle (1908-2008), an eminent preservationist who was one of the founders of the Victorian Society in America. The Victorian Society New York (officially known as the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America) regularly awards […]

In-Person Event at the Grolier Club 47 East 60th Street New York, NY 10022 Tickets Here Part of the Tin Pan Alley American Popular Music Project collection. Lecture with music and reception celebrates exhibition "To Fight for the Poor with My Pen: Zoe Anderson Norris" and Tin Pan Alley songs. On March 27, 5:30 to […]

At the Grolier Club 47 East 60th Street Tickets Here! Independent scholar Eve M. Kahn will give a tour of her exhibition at the Grolier Club (47 East 60th Street), To Fight for the Poor with My Pen: Zoe Anderson Norris, Queen of Bohemia. Norris (1860-1914), although little remembered today, was a foremother of modern-day social-justice […]

At Caramoor 149 Girdle Ridge Rd, Katonah, NY Tickets Here! This expert-led tour will explore Caramoor's spectacular Mediterranean Revival mansion in Katonah, NY, with furnishings including entire rooms imported from Europe and a surprising connection to early electronic music. Finished in 1939 after more than a decade of work, Caramoor was the country estate of […]

At the New-York Historical Society 170 Central Park West Tickets Here! New-York Historical Society curators will give a private tour of the first exhibition dedicated to Thomas Commeraw, a skilled craftsman in Lower Manhattan active from the 1790s to 1819, whose racial identity was long overlooked. Born enslaved, Commeraw rose to prominence as a free […]

The Victorian Society's Emerging Scholars Event will be on May 10th, from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at the Jefferson Market Library on 6th Avenue. Free! Registration Required VSNY is pleased to host three scholars, each giving a 20-minute presentation and followed by questions: NYU Costume Studies alumna Juliana Cirillo will explore aspects of ethnicity and class as […]

Join Us! Annual VSNY Margot Gayle Fundraiser When: Wednesday, May 24th 2023 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM Where: Hunt Slonem’s Manhattan Studio (location confirmed with ticket purchase) Contemporary artist Hunt Slonem is one of the most collected painters working today. His neo-Expressionist depictions of nature – including his iconic bunnies and parrots  -- are eagerly acquired […]