Slavery at the New-York Historical Society

When Slavery in New York opened at the New-York Historical Society in 2004, the subway posters declared "It Happened Here." Seemingly most general audiences still vaguely remember slavery as a matter of cotton fields full of shackled victim/workers. But the highly-acclaimed exhibition series altered the discourse, changing the history of slavery in the north from shameful secret to hot topic of public discussion. The exhibition series also included New York Divided, which showed how the motto “In Cotton We Trust” guided New York City long after the state abolished human bondage in 1827. The third exhibition in the series, entitled Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery was the largest assembly of artists' work on the topic ever gathered in one place, and stimulated N-YHS’s first purchase of a sculpture by an African-American woman. For the two-hundred year old Historical Society, whose founders included both slave-holders and precocious abolitionists, this was difficult history which entailed explicit public airing of the links between exploitation and economics. Exhibitions and public programs discussed how the city's growth and wealth depended on its ties to the slave economy of the South, so much so that New York City considered seceding with the South in 1861. These explorations into the tender zone where economics and issues of social justice clash continued after the exhibitions came down. These newly opened questions changed how library and museum displayed existing collections, how the Luce Center for the Study of American Culture was arranged, and how future collecting policies would incorporate the city’s slave past and legacy of racial conflict into its future plans. The unintended consequences of the initial series of exhibitions on slavery are the centerpiece of this case study of the memory of slavery in one of the country’s oldest history collecting institutions.