Antiquarians pick Lapides to lead the

Bob Cox spotted News that Julian L. Lapides has just been elected chairman of the board of councilors of the American Antiquarian Society for the coming year.

The American Antiquarian Society, founded in Worcester, Mass., in 1812, by Isaiah Thomas, a printer, patriot, historian and book collector, is one of those august New England institutions of which few are more hallowed. The learned society’s collections of printed materials are probably second to none in documents of American history from 1640 through 1876. They include about two-thirds of everything printed in America through 1820, including an Algonquin Bible, the papers of Abigail Adams and those Puritan stalwarts Increase and Cotton Mather, and about 2 million copies of newspapers.