NEW YORK, NY.- On Saturday, September 26, 2009, the New-York Historical Society will participate in the fifth annual Museum Day, presented by Smithsonian magazine. A celebration of culture, learning and the dissemination of knowledge, Smithsonian’s Museum Day reflects the spirit of the magazine, and emulates the free-admission policy of the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, DC-based properties. Doors will be open free of charge to Smithsonian magazine readers and Smithsonian.com visitors at museums and cultural institutions nationwide.

Last year, upwards of 200,000 people attended Museum Day, with all 50 states plus Puerto Rico represented by over 900 participating museums, including 84 Smithsonian affiliate museums. This year, the magazine expects to attract over 1,000 museums.

“For over a century and a half the New-York Historical Society and the Smithsonian Institution have been partners in ’the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.’ In the spirit of the Historical Society's mission to preserve and teach our nation's history, we are delighted to open our doors free of charge on Smithsonian Museum Day 2009,” said Stephen Edidin, Chief Curator of Museum Division & Curator of American and European Art.

Museum Day visitors to the New-York Historical Society are invited to:

* Join us for a special talk from 1:00 pm until 2:30 pm about the making of “Lincoln and New York” exhibition. Curator Richard Rabinowitz will discuss the show’s bold interpretation of Lincoln, which casts new light not only on the Civil War years but on today's political landscape. He will unveil the surprising ways New York, as America's media capital, created successive images of Abraham Lincoln, and how Lincoln as President shaped New York's growing commercial and financial power.

* Visit the related exhibition, John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legacy, which marks the 150th anniversary of John Brown's raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia and of his execution.

* Celebrate the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage along the river that bears his name with the exhibition New York Painting Begins: Eighteenth-Century Portraits, featuring its premiere collections of eighteenth-century American portraits.

* Explore the Henry Luce III Center for the Study of American Culture, a permanent, innovative display that makes accessible to the public more than 30,000 museum objects, ranging from the cot used by George Washington at Valley Forge to one of the world’s largest collections of Tiffany lamps. The Slavery in New York panel exhibition is on display in the mezzanine level.