For sharing web-friendly finding aids describing Carnegie Hall's historic collections.
View the Project on GitHub CarnegieHall/archives-findingaids
The Carnegie Hall Archives preserves, catalogs and describes thousands of concert programs, posters and flyers, audio and video recordings, photographs, musical manuscripts and autographs, administrative files, and architectural drawings that tell the story of the musicians, politicians, and world figures who have appeared in more than 50,000 events since 1891.
Learn more about the Carnegie Hall Archives or explore past events on the Carnegie Hall Performance History Search.
📄 - Finding aid available
📝 - Collection guide, inventory or other descriptive document available
Questions? Email us at Archives@carnegiehall.org.
Drawings from the architects and firms associated with Carnegie Hall, including William Burnet Tuthill, Kahn & Jacobs (Ely Jacques Kahn & Robert Allan Jacobs), John J. McNamara, and James Stewart Polshek.
Sculpture, paintings, and sketches on a wide range of subjects by tenants and other artists.
More than 20 batons from conductors such as Arturo Toscanini, Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer, and Leonard Bernstein.
Fifty-two ledgers used to schedule performances in all three halls from 1955 to 2007.
Beer, medicine, and toiletry bottles associated with the businesses in or near Carnegie Hall.
More than 200 items from Marian Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Noël Coward, Franz Liszt, Leopold Stokowski, and others.
More than 300 items, ranging from a scarf worn by Isadora Duncan, Carnegie Hall Tavern matchbooks, and original Edison light bulbs from the Hall, to Carnegie Hall–themed sheet music, commemorative postage stamps, and more.
Scores, musical quotations, letters, autographs, and calling cards from composers whose music has been performed at Carnegie Hall.
More than 200 newspapers, clippings, and magazines that contain reviews of events, advertisements, images, and stories about Carnegie Hall, including complete newspapers for the opening of the Hall in 1891.
Images documenting the visual history of Carnegie Hall, including building and event photos from 1891 to the present.
Promotional flyers, window cards, and large posters from a variety of Carnegie Hall events dating from the 1890s.
Printed concert programs from 1891 to the present, documenting performances from all of Carnegie Hall’s stages.
Recordings of one-time performances by many of the world’s greatest musicians, including commercial releases, archival study recordings, and radio broadcasts in formats that range from acetate and vinyl discs to analog and digital audio tape to compact discs.
A variety of material relating to the tenants and studios of Carnegie Hall, including sketches by artist Hilla von Rebay and correspondence and sketches of illustrator Frederick Stuart Church.
More than 800 tickets from Carnegie Hall events from 1891 to the present, including a ticket from Opening Night on May 5, 1891.
Television broadcasts, commercial releases, documentaries, B-roll footage, newsreel clips, and archival study videos that document many of Carnegie Hall’s historic events.
Finding Aid | AT&T Presents Carnegie Hall Tonight was a radio and television music program produced at Carnegie Hall from 1978 to 1988. The collection includes correspondence and financial materials that document the program’s production.
Material collected by Walter Damrosch, who played a significant role in the building of Carnegie Hall, including autographed cabinet cards of Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, a letter from Franz Liszt, and other items.
Inventory | Questionnaires from 60 composers for a 1934 edition of Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, including Alban Berg, Jean Sibelius, Anton Webern, and Edgard Varèse.
Finding Aid | Correspondence, programs, a flyer, and a subscription proposal for Wetzler Symphony Concerts at Carnegie Hall, 1902‒1904.
Collection Guide | Isaac A. Hopper was the owner of the construction company that built Carnegie Hall in 1891,and the collection includes a scrapbook with clippings about his life and career, some photographs of Hopper and his family, an essay by Walter F. Hopper Jr., and with a genealogic tree drawn by Patricia Hopper Strasberg.
Finding Aid | John Totten began his career at Carnegie Hall in 1903 as an usher, frequently escorting Andrew Carnegie to his box in the Main Hall. He worked his way up through the ranks to become house manager in 1927, a position he held until his retirement in 1968. This collection consists of autographed photos, Totten’s autograph book, and business records.
Finding Aid | Julius Bloom was executive director of Carnegie Hall from 1960 to 1977. This collection includes administrative and programming records, correspondence, minutes, and reports from the Board of Trustees.
Finding Aid | Leonora Shier was a rental agent and secretary of Carnegie Hall Incorporated from 1925 to 1956. This collection contains business records of Carnegie Hall Incorporated, personal correspondence, and photographs.
Louis Salter was an employee of Carnegie Hall from 1893 to 1925 in roles that range from assistant electrician to superintendent. This collection includes his autograph book and a series of autographed artist photos, principally covering the years 1912‒1925.
Finding Aid | The scrapbook of Manheim Fox, who presented the first New York Folk Festival at Carnegie Hall in June 1965, contains press clippings, scripts for festival segments, correspondence, and a festival program and flyer.
Finding Aid | The scrapbook of Maurice Murray Weisman, general manager and vice president of Carnegie Hall Inc. from 1933 to 1935 and president of Carnegie Hall Inc. from 1935 to 1939, contains letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, transcripts of speeches, and photographs that chronicle Weisman’s professional achievements, from his acceptance into Harvard to previews of Carnegie Hall’s 1938–1939 season.
The Music Hall Company of New York was the administrative body of Carnegie Hall from 1891 to 1925. This collection includes correspondence between Howard Russell Butler (the first president of Carnegie Hall) and Andrew Carnegie, documents on Hall administration from 1891 to 1919, and original Music Hall Company stock certificates signed by Carnegie, Butler, and other officers of the company.
Finding Aid | Robert E. Simon Sr. purchased Carnegie Hall from Louise Carnegie in 1925 and formed Carnegie Hall Inc. to act as the Hall’s administrative body. Upon his death in 1935, his son Robert Simon Jr. became owner and then president of Carnegie Hall Inc. until the sale of the Hall to the City of New York in 1960. This collection contains correspondence, scrapbooks, and board minutes related to Simon’s ownership of Carnegie Hall.
Collection Guide | William Burnet Tuthill was the architect of Carnegie Hall and the collection includes the questionnaires he sent to European theaters to inquire about how other theaters and hall were built, a scrapbook with clippings of articles and lithographs of his works, and a series of architectural drawings for the Hall and its renovations.