Stirring the Melting Pot: Photographs from The New York Historical Collections
View the immigrant experience in New York through the faces and places photographers have captured over time.
View the immigrant experience in New York through the faces and places photographers have captured over time.
Our new exhibition mines the vast photography collections of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library as a lens to view the immigrant experience in New York through the faces and places photographers have captured over time. Featuring more than 100 photographs and objects, the exhibition explores how immigrants transformed the city as a whole and created communities in their new home. Among the highlights are photographs that document the impact of the 1904 General Slocum steamboat disaster on one family, illustrating how the tragedy reshaped a community and city neighborhoods, as well as images spanning the 20th century that capture a vast range of immigrant life. Photographs show children at play and in school, seniors at recreational centers, workers in sweatshops and factories, families at home, and visitors to festivals and parades—all making a life for themselves after leaving places like Bosnia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, Haiti, Italy, Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, and Vietnam, among others. Depictions of Greek Orthodox churches, Cambodian Buddhist temples, Jewish synagogues, and Sikh temples highlight the city's diverse faiths, while images of street vendors and storefronts chart how food has played a transformative role in New York's landscape.
Curated by Valerie Paley, Senior Vice President and Sue Ann Weinberg Director of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, with Keren Ben-Horin, Curatorial Scholar.
Join us at The New York Historical—both in person and online—for a suite of exhibitions, programs, and a digital project called On Our 250th that has a nationwide coalition of history museums inviting Americans to share their hopes for our democracy.
Exhibitions at The New York Historical are made possible by Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang, the Saunders Trust for American History, the Evelyn & Seymour Neuman Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WNET is the media sponsor.
Media sponsor:
![John Dickinson, A Declaration [. . .] Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity [of] Taking up Arms (Philadelphia: Bradford, 1775). Photograph by Vincent Dilio. Courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fd17xep5pb0e8k3.cloudfront.net%2FaJOU2KTt2nPbZ7gB_15-04092025_a_declaration_by_representatives_of_united_colonies_philadelphia_1775_C_001b.jpg%3Fauto%3Dformat%252Ccompress%26rect%3D291%252C1814%252C3548%252C1602%26w%3D2000%26h%3D903%26q%3D80&w=1200&q=75)
![John Dickinson, A Declaration [. . .] Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity [of] Taking up Arms (Philadelphia: Bradford, 1775). Photograph by Vincent Dilio. Courtesy of David M. Rubenstein.](https://d17xep5pb0e8k3.cloudfront.net/aJOU2KTt2nPbZ7gB_15-04092025_a_declaration_by_representatives_of_united_colonies_philadelphia_1775_C_001b.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&rect=291%2C1814%2C3548%2C1602&w=2000&h=903&q=80)
