As the New York Academy of Medicine celebrates its 150th year as a leader in the field of urban health, it is instructive to review the events and decisions that influenced and shaped it. Since its inception, the Academy has taken an active role in lobbying state and local governments to enact more-effective public health laws and in educating the public about improving health conditions. During 1996 and 1997, the Academy Library's Historical Collections is mounting a series of six exhibitions that are intended to tell the story of public health in New York as influenced by the New York Academy of Medicine. The story will be told using printed books, pamphlets, posters, photographs, and manuscripts drawn from the Library's collections, as well as the Academy's archives. Each exhibition will highlight the Academy's accomplishments in the subject areas presented. In this article, we summarize all six of the exhibitions and offer an in-depth look at the first two exhibitions.