0.4 Chapter two: the formative years, 1804-1920  (Page 2/8)

With money borrowed against projected income from the lottery, the Society published a library catalog and a second volume describing its collections. By 1823, the Society had accumulated a debt of $8,000, but still no lottery had taken place, and prospects for one had dissolved. The debt set the stage for a major financial crisis that forced the Society to consider sale of its collections. The following auc­tion notice, signed by the executive committee of the Society, appeared in the New York Commercial Advertiser under the headline "Sale of Very Valuable Books":

The undersigned,... a committee with full powers, appointed by the New York Historical Society for the purpose of extricating said Society from its pe­cuniary embarrassments, find themselves compelled, very reluctantly, to offer for sale the choice and rare Library of that institution. . . . The undersigned very sincerely and earnestly hope that such steps will be taken by some of the Literary Institutions of this city, in order to prevent the scattering of that valu­able collection of Books, and its thus being lost to this city and state.

The Society's difficulties attracted the attention of state government officials, including DeWitt Clinton, who had been elected governor of New York. In his address to the legislature in 1826, Governor Clinton recommended that "the resuscitation of this Society and a liberal provision for its extended usefulness are mea­sures worthy of ... adoption."

To add to its financial problems during the first part of the century, the Society also found itself in a nearly constant search for a permanent home. In the period between 1809 and 1857, when it was finally able to construct its own build­ing, the Society moved five times. In addition, the collections were twice crated and moved to safeguard against enemy bombardment. Somehow, despite this adversity, the Society managed to become a leader among American historical societies. Its library was growing at a faster rate than the Massachusetts Histori­cal Society and was nearly the same size as that of the wealthier American Anti­quarian Society.

Membership in the Society also increased during this period. Between 1843 and 1849, nearly a thousand new members were added to its rolls. In his report to members, the chairman of the executive committee referred to "the prosper­ous condition and flattering prospects of the Society. . .. The stated meetings con­tinue to be well attended and are popular and useful." These lectures played a primary role in stabilizing the Society's financial condition in the late 1830s.

This relative prosperity allowed the Society to embark on a building campaign in the hope of securing, for the first time, a permanent and fireproof shelter for its rapidly growing and valuable collections. Two attempts to secure state or city funding for this initiative failed, and the Society concentrated its efforts on raising funds from private sources. By 1854, enough money had been raised to pur­chase a lot at the corner of Eleventh Street and Second Avenue, and three years later, the Society's first building was completed.