The future of history will be in its ability to predict the emerging present
We are caught in that particular moment when old men, remembering their dreams, pay homage to them. In some cases they remember a past no longer anchored in the present. As a case in point, the Gannett newspaper organization which achieved both wealth and power through the ownership of daily newspapers in the United States in the 20th century, leveraged that success into, among other things, the Newseum, a homage to the printed word in Washington D. C. It was a splendid, if dated idea, that would have held crowds in thrall in the 1930’s but has rapidly lost ground to the internet, news feeds, and instant messaging. Of course, it’s not the museum located In Washington D. C. that fell behind, it’s the present that is racing ahead. So here’s a note to the future. Museums should focus on the future to anticipate what we will end up living through. Had the Newseum done that they might have survived.
Their end could have been worse.
The New York Times had a story in its west coast edition on Saturday January 26th that both announced the sale and sought to explain it in which it came down to this: insufficient attendance and rising real estate values. It turns out the real estate market is going to bail out the Gannett Foundation [now called the Freedom Forum] and the building will go to one of the few enterprises that has control over its retail prices: higher education. Johns Hopkins, the great Baltimore university, is buying a beachhead in the nation’s capital.
Many in the world of rare books, manuscripts, maps and ephemera will recognize the symptoms: declining audiences, higher costs, and changing methods of interaction. Collectible paper faces many of the same issues. My take away: explain your material in ways that illuminate the future so you won’t be relegated to the past. Yesterday’s news has become a hard sell.
In time the Newseum will become an entirely electronic institution, live online, see its attendance soar and its archives quoted every day around the world. We now have to fit into an evolving world because that world increasingly does not remember us, even if the building is pristine and the location at the nexus of power.
Sotheby’s, July 14: Henry De La Beche. "Awful Changes," 1830. $6,000 to $9,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 11]. Flight Plan, Complete Original Printing Signed by Buzz Aldrin. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Thomas Alva Edison. Documents Establishing and Ending the Edison Electric Railway Company. $20,000 to $30,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: Richard P. Feynman. Feynman's Lectures on Gravitation 1-16, Including the Original Transcriptions of Lectures 12-16 by Morinigo and Wagner, With Richard Feynman's Manuscript Notations, 1971. $12,000 to $18,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [Apollo 9]. A Group of Manuals and Mission Documents used by Stuart Roosa as a member of the Astronaut Support Crew. $5,000 to $8,000.
Sotheby’s, July 15: [BYTE: The Small Systems Journal]. A collection of early foundational issues of Byte: The Small Systems Journal, with rare hardcover editions. $5,000 to $8,000.
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Inundation papyrus. P.Michael 4, the ‘Inundation papyrus’, a geographical account of the Nile near Canopus, in Greek, remains of two columns from a manuscript scroll on papyrus, Egypt, second century CE. £12,000-18,000
Forum, July 16: Book of Hours, use of Sarum, manuscript on vellum, 6 full-page miniatures, with famous Middle English inscriptions, Southern Netherlands for the English market, [c.1430]. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Qu'ran, Arabic manuscript on burnished, stencilled, and gold-flecked paper, 447ff., Sultanate Gujarat, Ahmadabad, [after 1411 but no later than 1442]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Turner (William). A New boke of the natures and properties of all wines that are commonly vsed here in England, rare first edition of the first English book on wine, By William Seres, 1568. £20,000-£30,000
Forum, July 16: Spenser (Edmund). The Faerie Queene. first edition, Printed [by John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, 1590. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Shakespeare (William). The Comedie of Errors, extracted from the first folio, Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, 1623. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Fleming (Ian). Casino Royale, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1953. £40,000-60,000
Forum, July 16: d'Agoty (Jacques-Fabien Gautier). Anatomie de la Tête, first edition, Paris, chez le Sieur Gautier, 1748. £10,000-15,000
Forum, July 16: Martial Arts.- Lee (Bruce). 'Praying Mantis style' Kung Fu book, containing numerous annotations, diagrams and graphs in Bruce Lee's hand, c. 1960. £50,000-70,000
Forum Auctions The 10th Anniversary Sale Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper July 16, 2026
Forum, July 16: Warre (Capt. Henry James). Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, rare hand-coloured issue, 1848. £30,000-40,000
Forum, July 16: Norie (John William). The Marine Atlas, or Seaman's Complete Pilot for all the principal places in the known world..., 1826. £30,000-50,000
Forum, July 16: Mao Tse-tung.- Kim Il-sung.-[Note book for visitors from China to Korea], signed by Mao and Kim, [Beijing, 1954]. £10,000-15,000
