About New Amsterdam Stories

The New Amsterdam Stories project began as a collaboration between the New York City Municipal Archives and the Stadsarchief Amsterdam. Both of these city archives were working to digitize and make available 17th-century records related to New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement on the southern tip of Manhattan that would become New York City. A joint project was suggested by Russell Shorto, encouraged by the New Netherland Institute, and facilitated by the Dutch consulate. New Amsterdam Stories was born, a platform to share each archives' efforts to document the stories of the people of New Amsterdam. The project set in motion a unique shared cultural-heritage partnership seeking to bring archival collections to wider audiences and to establish opportunities for greater research, knowledge-sharing, and storytelling. We hope to serve as a model for access and interpretation of digital heritage collections.