John Jay: #DormLife in 1764

John Jay would probably be amused if he knew that many, many years in the future, his old Alma Mater—then King’s College, now Columbia—would honor his legacy by naming a dormitory after him. It was a dorm room incident in the original College Hall in 1764 that earned him a suspension from the College and […]

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Juneteenth, Freedom, and Emancipation Archives in the RBML

  June 19th, known as Juneteenth, has long been a key African American holiday — a day to commemorate emancipation and freedom from enslavement. The date was first celebrated in Texas, in 1865, to mark the end of slavery after the Civil War. In the RBML, archival documents related to African American freedom reflect the […]

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A John Jay Papers milestone on President’s Day

We’re celebrating the release of volume five of The Selected Papers of John Jay: 1788-1794 (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2017). Jay Papers editor Robb Haberman says, “It opens with the ratification of the Constitution, and covers Jay’s role in the forming of the new government as acting Secretary of State prior to Jefferson’s taking office […]

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Loaded Dice

Currently on view in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library is a small but fascinating exhibition of dice, from the Smith Collection of Mathematical  Instruments. They date from the Roman era to the early 20th century. David Eugene Smith (1860-1944) was a professor of mathematics at Teachers College, Columbia University. He used these dice in […]

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John Jay’s Circuit Court Diary

"Your Letter by the Miss Allens is the last that I have recd— I ought to have seen those Ladies, but the Court has unceasingly engrossed my Time– we did not adjourn until 9 last Night– I feel fatigued in body and mind; but Reflections of this kind are not to be endulged– . . […]

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