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Published: 2015-07-20
Total Pages: 38
ISBN-13: 9781331899426
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Excerpt from American Antiquarian Society: Handbook of Information The American Antiquarian Society, which in 1912 will celebrate its one hundredth anniversary, exists to-day as one of the oldest national institutions in the country. In October, 1812, Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., with five associates, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature to establish a society whose chief object should be the collecting and preserving the materials for a study of American history and antiquities. It was the expressed intention of the founders to form a society which should be "truly beneficial, not only to the present, but particularly to future generations - a society not confined to local purposes, not intended for the particular advantage of any one State or section of the Union, or for the benefit of a few individuals - one whose members may be found in every part of our western continent and its adjacent islands, and who are citizens of all parts of this quarter of the world." On October 24, 1812, the Society was incorporated. It was decided that beyond the reason of the residence of the founder, it was best to locate the building of the Society at an inland rather than a coast town. As Thomas says, "For the better preservation from the destruction so often experienced in large towns and cities by fire, as well as from the ravages of an enemy, to which seaports in particular are so much exposed in time of war, it is universally agreed that for a place of deposit for articles intended to be preserved for ages, and of which many, if destroyed or carried away, could never be replaced by others of the like kind, an inland situation is to be preferred; this consideration alone was judged sufficient for placing the Library and Museum of this Society forty miles distant from the nearest branch of the sea, in the town of Worcester, Massachusetts." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
