Printed & Manuscript Americana

March 19, 2021

“Surely you are not going to shut the door in my face!” Since the establishment of the Printed & Manuscript African Americana sale in 1996, Swann has offered a…

March 1, 2021

Featuring material relating to Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Phillis Wheatley, Katherine Dunham, Kool Lance, and more.

December 23, 2020

In a year that was unlike any in our lifetimes, Swann’s specialists and staff proved to be as resilient and innovative as ever, bringing forward new and safe ways to hold…

October 7, 2020

Our Thursday, September 24, 2020 sale of Printed & Manuscript Americana brought an 82% sell-through rate by lot, totaling over $600k with at least 23 institutions purchasing a…

September 15, 2020

Each summer, tourists, some of them artists, flocked to Northeastern coastal havens to cure urban fatigue, become closer with nature, and enjoy the slower pace for the season. We…

September 15, 2020

You may never have wondered about the birth of the Alaskan film industry. The first Hollywood film studio was launched in 1911, and from there the industry spread up and down the…

August 25, 2020

Covering a period of about five centuries and two continents, our auctions of Printed & Manuscript Americana are exceptionally varied in content and subjects covered, from…

July 21, 2020

Any experienced cataloger, scholar, collector, or reader of early printing is accustomed to discovering an array of random objects within the pages of books. Even though some of…

June 30, 2020

Probably the most common question we get in the Americana department is “I found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence—is it worth anything?” The…

April 16, 2020

Among the highlights will be an 1836 autograph book with inscriptions by noted early African-American orators Moses Roper and Peter Williams. The large section on slavery and…