blue background with text that reads "A Century of The New Yorker" exhibition title

Since its launch in 1925, The New Yorker has cornered the market on literary cosmopolitanism through its irreverent tone, visual style, and ability to draw the talents of unparalleled writers and artists. In its pages—and in the bustling New Yorker offices—editors, writers, and artists, along with lesser-known collaborators from typesetters to fact-checkers, put together the nuts and bolts of the magazine with words and vision, pencil and printer’s ink. In this major new exhibition, The New York Public Library will bring to life the people, stories, and ideas that made The New Yorker what it was—and still is today. Drawing primarily from the Library’s rich collections, the exhibition will survey a hundred years of life at the magazine, featuring typewriters used by editor William Shawn and writer Lillian Ross; manuscripts and drafts by celebrated authors, from Hannah Arendt to Sapphire; correspondence between New Yorker editors and J. D. Salinger, Annie Proulx, and Vladimir Nabokov; and original art by Charles Addams and Kara Walker. 

This exhibition is organized by The New York Public Library and curated by Julie Golia, Associate Director, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books and Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts, and Julie Carlsen, Assistant Curator, Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. 

 

Check back soon for more information! 

Learn About The New Yorker at NYPL

The New York Public Library is an invaluable resource for scholars, students, and creators in New York and worldwide. With more than 46 million objects in our research collections and the unparalleled expertise of our librarians, anyone can come and find what they need for their workfor free. Learn more about research at NYPL.

Interested in conducting your own research on The New Yorker? The New York Public Library holds the New Yorker records, comprising 2,566 boxes, seven microfilm reels, and 18 sound recordings documenting the magazine’s rich history. 

Additional collections related to the editors, writers, and artists who contributed to The New Yorker can be found across the research libraries: in the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American LiteratureThe Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, and the General Research Division at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building; and in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Did you know that NYPL library cardholders have free access to the current issue of The New Yorker and its online archive of past issues? Explore the entire run of the magazine, in full text and full color, from 1925 to the present, through the New Yorker Digital Archive. Don't have a library card? Get one today.