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About American Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is a national research library and community of learners in Worcester, Massachusetts. AAS holds one of the world’s largest collections of original printed, handwritten, and visual sources published before the twentieth century in North America, including the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, and Mexico. The library of more than four million items includes books, pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers, periodicals, children's literature, music, and graphic arts material. In addition, AAS supports researchers, artists, and writers with a variety of fellowship programs.

AAS has an exceptional collection of early newspapers and almanacs printed on the Caribbean islands between 1718 and 1876. For Cuba in particular, AAS has ephemeral publications including photographs, sheet music, and advertisements.

The Cuban Sheet Music collection consists of digitized sheet music, mostly published by Edelmann y Ca in Havana between 1836 and 1881. Juan Federico Edelmann, the son of an Alsatian composer, opened his music store in Havana in 1836. Edelmann died in 1848, but the firm continued until 1881. Most of the music now at AAS was collected by Stephen Salisbury Jr. during his time in the Caribbean and Central America in the nineteenth century.

Learn more on the AAS website: https://americanantiquarian.org