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The New School for Social Research is a private university situated in the Manhattan area of New York. It is generally described in the documents issued by the school and by those who know its reputation, as an atypical institution whose raisons d’être include the defense of democracy and of intellectual and political freedom. Based on archival sources and interviews with past and present members of the school, this article examines the role of history, seen as continually reconstructed, in the creation and perpetuation of the rather idealistic institutional image. The article examines the various influences which affect how this history is constructed. Particular attention is paid to how such influences shape a positive image of an institution which is considered simultaneously as always new yet firmly anchored in the past.