Scope and Contents Note

The New-York Historical Society management committee records group (NYHS-RG 1) includes records associated with the organization’s governance structure of 1804-1937. The record group includes ten volumes of minute books from the meetings of the Society’s members (1804-1937) and twenty volumes of minute books from the Executive Committee (1842-1937). The final volume of the Executive Committee minutes also includes the minutes for the 1938 meetings of the newly-formed Board of Trustees. The record group also holds the minute books for three other committees: the Standing Committee (1806-1822, with gaps), the Mineralogical Committee (1818-1819), and the Committee on Fine Arts (1856-1880). The Standing Committee book includes mostly lists of donations to N-YHS for many of these early years.

The record group also includes so-called “official papers” (1804-1938). Most of these papers are preparatory material for the Society and Executive Committee meetings, preliminary notes and drafts of meeting minutes, or supporting or source materials concerning matters presented at the meetings, such as correspondence, reports, invoices, nominations of new members, and so forth. Taken together, the minute books and the supporting official papers form the framework of the basic narrative of the history of N-YHS to 1938.