The aims of the General Society were to provide cultural, educational and social services to families of skilled craftsmen.

Besides its charitable activities, the society played a prominent part in the festivities that marked patriotic holidays, carrying banners emblazoned with its slogan 'By hammer and hand all arts do stand', echoing the motto of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths.

[2] Old documents reveal that the Society was quite active in the last years of the 18th century, corresponding with other business related associations, and petitioning the state legislature in the interests of industrial progress.

Its aim was to provide good and instructive reading for apprentice boys who worked all day, and had no other access to books and the library therefore kept evening hours.

In 1833, by amendment to its charter, the Society was authorized to increase its usefulness by reserving a portion of its income for the purposes of "promoting and disseminating literary and scientific knowledge," which was determined could be best done by means of lectures,[2] and more recently, through the cultural and educational activities of the New York Center for Independent Publishing.

The lecture series, which began in 1837—and continues today—featured such illuminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greeley, Wendell Phillips, and Rear – Admiral Robert E. Peary.

18 East 16th Street ("on Sixteenth-street, near Union-square") to house its collection of 60,000 books, mostly "practical works in serviceable bindings" of use to its 8,000 members.

It was decided that each year two students from Mechanics Institute would attend the University of the City of New York, free of charge.

About $8,000 in government bonds were purchased and many Society members enlisted in the New York Volunteer Corps of Engineers.

Originally designed by Lamb and Rich and constructed as the Berkeley School for Boys, the building was acquired by The General Society in 1899.

In order to accommodate more students, two wings were added to the rear and three new upper stories replaced an original fourth-floor gymnasium.

The expansion was designed by Ralph S. Townsend and blends monumental Beaux Arts classicism with Renaissance elements.