Inside The Robert Caro Archive At The New-York Historical Society

In January 2020, the New-York Historical Society announced that it would be receiving a treasure trove of Robert Caro materials from the man himself, who stipulated at the time that the entire archive be made public. Research notebooks, handwritten interview notes, scrapbooks, photographs, and original manuscript pages were transported from the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer's office to the city's oldest museum, where over a year later they are still sifting through the bounty.

While every piece of scrap paper—spread across around 150 boxes—has not been thoroughly inspected, preserved, and documented yet, the museum is now offering its first look at the archive of materials. Turn Every Page: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive opens today (October 22nd), and aims to trace "the arc of Caro’s early career first as a student journalist at Princeton and later as an investigative reporter for Newsday, and highlight his on-the-ground research for both The Power Broker and The Years of Lyndon Johnson as well as his rigorous process of interviewing, writing, and editing."

Throughout the exhibit, you'll become witness to Caro's "development as a writer, the craft of his writing, as well as the sweeping history of New York City and state politics from the 1920s through the 1960s and the history of the United States in the 20th century."

The archival materials will, in some version, be permanently on view at the museum, which Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of NYHS, said is a testament to the author and historian. But it also speaks to him as a quintessential New Yorker—Ted O’Reilly, the museum's Curator of Manuscripts, told Gothamist, "I think anyone who’s familiar with New York history in the 20th century knows that Caro is a name that really resonates in New York City—certainly [this] is an ideal home for someone who has tapped into that history as deeply as he has."

O'Reilly also noted that the exhibition, given its permanent nature and the deep well of materials they now have access to, will evolve over time, so Caro-heads should plan to make multiple returns.

"This is basically the first look," he told us, "We’ve covered things that we might not emphasize as much in future interactions. How these things will evolve and change in the exhibit itself, we’re still kind of working on. But something like the LBJ section, it covers mainly The Path to Power, the first volume... As anniversaries of some of these publications come about, we’ll probably place an emphasis on other volumes. Just because someone doesn’t see something in the exhibit, doesn’t mean that it won’t be out there for people to see."

O'Reilly said one of the more interesting items they've unearthed so far is a shining example of Caro's detailed process while working on The Power Broker: a sheet with tally marks from 1967.

That August, Caro and his wife and collaborator Ina "sat in a parking lot in Jones Beach State Park, and tallied the races of people that were arriving. You’ll very quickly realize that the column for whites is overwhelmingly longer than anyone else. What they were trying to do was actually substantiate some of the things Caro had been hearing about [Robert] Moses. He knew he was racist—he’d heard about Moses having the bridges and parkways on Long Island built low so that buses couldn’t pass under... what they were doing was trying to see if this was borne out four decades later." Caro wanted hard evidence of the damaging impact that Moses had on New York and New Yorkers.

His attention to detail is also highlighted in the exhibit's title, "Turn Every Page," something that Newsday editor Alan Hathway told Caro when he was an investigative reporter for the paper, underscoring the importance of combing through every document.

The word count planning calendar.

And then there's Caro holding himself accountable—the exhibit also features a word ledger which tracks his "1000 word goal for every day that he’s writing... he basically records how many words he’s achieved in each day."

Caro contributed some words to this exhibit, as well. O'Reilly told us, "A lot of the descriptions are enriched because he recalls a lot, and there are subtleties in the exhibit labels purely because Caro was able to contribute them."

Read More: Robert Caro Wonders What New York Is Going To Become

As for what's left, they're about midway through the materials, and anticipate everything will have been sorted through and available in early 2023. The process has been unique for the NYHS, O'Reilly said, "It’s not common that we acquire the research papers of someone. It speaks to Caro’s importance, that this is someone we want to bring in...When you have someone who’s a unique thinker and who’s influenced their profession in the way Caro has, it adds a tremendous amount of value to that material."

Turn Every Page: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive is on view at New-York Historical (170 Central Park West) starting October 22nd. On October 24th, the museum will host a Robert Caro symposium. Looking for some sweet Caro merch? The gift shop will be offering books, but beyond that the NYHS says there "aren't any custom Caro merchandise items in the works."