Cultural Excursions Organized by the MLA
The MLA has organized seven cultural excursions that will take place during the 2018 MLA Annual Convention in New York City. The excursions give registrants an opportunity to experience some of the city’s celebrated libraries, unique museums, rich history, and cultural highlights in six different Manhattan neighborhoods.
Space is limited, and there is an additional fee for each excursion. To participate, select an excursion and payment option when you complete your convention registration form. Convention registrants may also sign up a limited number of guests per excursion for an additional fee (the fee is the same for convention registrants and guests); guests must be signed up and accompanied by a convention registrant to attend an excursion. Please see the descriptions below for more information.
We regret that we cannot provide refunds for cancellations received after 5 December 2017.
If you have already registered for the convention and wish to attend an excursion, write to registration@mla.org. Please include your registration confirmation number in your request.
Morgan Library and Museum
- Thursday, 4 January 2018
- 10:00 a.m.–12:00 noon
- $30 per person
- 225 Madison Avenue at East 36th Street
The Morgan Library and Museum, once the private library of the financier Pierpont Morgan, holds a celebrated collection of rare books and manuscripts—including ancient tablets and Egyptian papyrus fragments—musical scores, children’s literature, and art from around the world.
TOUR DETAILS
Join the Morgan’s staff for a tour of the legendary museum and library. Meet the head of reader services for a look at the Morgan’s treasured rare book and manuscript collection, which includes complete manuscripts, drafts of poetry and prose, correspondence, and journals of Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, and Toni Morrison. Attendees will also enjoy the unique architectural highlights of the buildings, designed by Charles McKim and the Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Renzo Piano.
The tour concludes at 12:00 noon. Attendees are welcome to continue exploring the museum until 5:00 p.m. Please note that food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the library.
The Morgan Library and Museum is about a mile from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by bus via the M1 or M5 to 38th Street and by subway via the B, D, or F train to 42nd Street.
New York Society Library
- Thursday, 4 January 2018
- 11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
- $20 per person
- 53 East 79th Street near Madison Avenue
The New York Society Library opened in lower Manhattan as a subscription library in 1754, serving the city long before the founding of the public library system in 1895. The library has prevailed through an incredible history, including the loss of much of its collection to British looters during the American Revolution. It also served as the nation’s Library of Congress during New York’s stint as the capital. The library’s membership has included John Jacob Astor, W. H. Auden, Herman Melville, and Willa Cather. Today the 257-year-old institution serves New York City as an active and historical monument to literature.
TOUR DETAILS
Join the head librarian and head of events for an exciting tour of the building that has served as the New York Society Library’s home since 1937. Then meet the book conservator for a live demonstration of her work and join the special collections librarian in the Rare Book Reading Room, where treasures from the collection will be displayed and discussed. The collections consist of more than ten thousand volumes on such topics as British and American fiction, biographies, art, travel, comics, children’s literature, and New York City history.
Please note that food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the library.
The New York Society Library is about two miles from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by bus via the M1, M3, or M4 to 79th Street and by subway via the 6 train to 77th Street or the Q train to 86th Street.
The National Museum of the American Indian
- Thursday, 4 January 2018
- 1:30–3:30 p.m.
- $20 per person
- 1 Bowling Green
The National Museum of the American Indian, a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, serves as New York’s greatest monument to the history of the American Indian. Home to one of the world’s largest collections of Native artifacts, the museum offers visitors the chance to explore the culture, identity, and history of the Native people of the Americas from the Arctic Circle to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
TOUR DETAILS
Enjoy a tour of the museum, located in the historic Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House. Building features include the exquisite rotunda mural depicting explorers of the Americas, created by Reginald Marsh in 1937 as part of the Works Projects Administration. Then join a museum curator for a tour of Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound, a new exhibit that includes works by Jordan Bennett (Mi’kmaq), Raven Chacon (Diné), Jon Corbett (Métis), Marcella Ernest (Ojibwe), Stephen Foster (Haida), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit), Julie Nagam (Anishnawbe/Métis), Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw), Keli Mashburn (Osage), and Kevin McKenzie (Cree/Métis).
Please note that food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the library.
The museum is about six miles from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by subway via the R or W train to Whitehall Street and the 1 train to South Ferry.
Tenement Museum Tour and Reception
- Thursday, 4 January 2018
- 6:00–8:30 p.m.
- $60 per person
- 103 Orchard Street
The Tenement Museum honors the nearly seven thousand immigrants who once lived in New York City’s historic Lower East Side. The restored apartments and businesses of past residents and merchants at 97 Orchard Street, built in 1863 and reopened as a museum in 1992, offer a rare space for discussion about the immigrant experience both past and present.
TOUR DETAILS
Enjoy a thirty-minute tour of one of the preserved tenement buildings, in which each apartment depicts the stories and struggles of immigrant families. The tour is followed by a ninety-minute reception with beer, wine, soft drinks, and appetizers provided by local businesses that showcase the flavors of the neighborhood. During the reception, you’ll hear stories of American immigration and migration pulled from Your Story, Our Story, a national collaborative project that portrays immigration stories through personal objects and family histories from across the United States. Attendees are encouraged to participate in the project and to upload their objects and stories to the digital collection before the tour. The reception will conclude at 8:30 p.m.
The Tenement Museum is about four miles from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by subway via the B or D train to Grand Street, the F train to Delancey Street, and the M train to Essex Street.
The New-York Historical Society
- Friday, 5 January 2018
- 10:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
- $40 per person
- 170 Central Park West at West 77th Street
Founded in 1804, the New-York Historical Society (NYHS) is one of the country’s outstanding cultural institutions and the oldest museum in New York City. It houses the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, the DiMenna Children’s History Museum, and the New-York Historical Society Education Center.
TOUR DETAILS
Enjoy a private tour of the society’s acclaimed collection; an overview of current exhibits; and a visit to the stunning library, featuring a curated selection from the collection. Exhibits on display include The Vietnam War: 1945–1975 and Hotbed, which brings to life the political and artistic history of New York City’s Greenwich Village in the early 1900s. The Center for Women’s History, the first museum-based hub dedicated to women’s history, will also be open. The library collections include Civil War memorabilia, eighteenth-century furniture, Tiffany lamps, original editions of classic literature, and artifacts chronicling the city’s evolution.
The tour will conclude at 12:30 p.m. Please note that food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the library.
NYHS is a mile and a half from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by subway via the B or C train to 72nd Street or 81st Street Museum of Natural History.
The Grolier Club
- Friday, 5 January 2018
- 2:00–3:00 p.m.
- $20 per person
- 47 East 60th Street near Park Avenue
The Grolier Club, a society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts, has been dedicated to the preservation, collection, and appreciation of book arts, including printing and typography, since its founding in 1884. It offers four free shows to the public annually, in addition to a number of other exhibits featuring collections from the club’s exclusive membership. The Grolier Club Library is home to one of the most comprehensive collections of literature on the art and history of the book and book making, containing more than 100,000 volumes.
TOUR DETAILS
Join a curator-led tour of the exhibit Radiant with Color and Art: McLoughlin Brothers and the Business of Picture Books, 1858–1920. The exhibit focuses on the long-neglected history of the publishing house that gave us mass-produced picture books nearly a century before Golden Books. McLoughlin Brothers invested in cutting-edge technologies like color lithography, marketed their products to every possible price point (from one cent to three dollars), and made sharp use of artistic talent like Thomas Nast to popularize visual icons like Santa Claus; the company’s tale is a quintessentially American story of ingenuity, creativity, and risk.
Attendees are welcome to visit “A Literary Fellowship”: Relationships and Rivalries in Nineteenth-Century American Literature, on the second floor. Please note that the club’s library is closed due to renovations.
Food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the museum.
The Grolier Club is less than a mile from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by subway via the N, R, or W train to Lexington Avenue 59th Street and the F train to Lexington Avenue 63rd Street.
New York Public Library
- Saturday, 6 January 2018
- 9:00–11:00 a.m.
- $20 per person
- 476 Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street
Founded in 1895, the New York Public Library (NYPL) is the largest public library system in the United States and the first public library system in New York City. NYPL provides open-access resources to ninety-two neighborhood branches and research centers spanning Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. The library holds more than 55 million items, including Christopher Columbus’s letter containing his discovery of the New World in 1493 and President George Washington’s Farewell Address.
TOUR DETAILS
Enjoy a private, behind-the-scenes tour of the library’s beloved main branch, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, before it opens to the public. Discover the spectacular architecture of Carrère and Hastings, the stunning—and recently landmarked—Rose Main Reading Room, and the iconic lion sculptures, Patience and Fortitude. Join curators for up-close access to selected highlights from the library’s collection.
Please note that food, drink, and flash photography are not permitted in the library.
NYPL’s main branch is about one mile from the New York Hilton Midtown and is accessible by subway via the D, F, N, or R train to 42nd Street.