History

“Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history would lose its meaning.”

— George Kennan

The Milsteins have made it a priority to preserve the records that give history its meaning. Their philanthropy has focused in equal parts on the waves of immigrants who came to America and the founders of the democracy to which those immigrants were drawn. Their activities range from preserving precious archives at the Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History, and Genealogy at the New York Public Library, to documenting Henry Hudson’s voyage up the mighty river named for him. Sponsored by the Milsteins, a range of books have been published that document various aspects of New York history.