LCP News

Intern Spotlight: Lydia Shaw

Intern Spotlight: Lydia Shaw

June 11, 2018/by nscalessa
Printed in color and selling for a dollar wholesale, the “orange blossom” certificate was the preference of the about twenty-five-year-old Thomas Radle (b. 1861) and teen-aged Mary Dasher (b. ca. 1867-1894). Containing their portrait photographs, the certificate documents that D.W. Proffitt (1841-1913) of the United Memorial Brethren Church married the couple in September 1885 in Pittsburgh. Thomas appears in a suit, derby hat, and with a cigarette in his mouth. Mary wears a long-sleeve, dark-colored dress with a bustle. Although used in a marriage certificate, and especially given Radle’s pose, the photographs, as with the previous couple, were probably ones the couple already possessed. They had not acquired them for the occasion, although possibly for the certificate. A genealogical record, the certificate’s content also provides a trail of evidence for more concrete information about the couple. Mary, likely a domestic servant before her marriage, passed away in 1894. As traced in census and marriage documents, Thomas, a railroad laborer, then farmer, later marries her sister Clara Dasher (1872-1960). He is listed as widowed and she as his housekeeper in the 1900 census. By the summer of 1900, a Pennsylvania marriage license has been issued to the couple. And in the 1910 census, Clara is described as Thomas’s wife. Weddings are history-making events for the couple married. In the modern era, they can also be history making in terms of cost. The Crider & Brother prints and ephemera are humble, yet symbolic artifacts of wedding commercialization. They are captivating mementoes of wedding practices of the past, while also perspicacious harbingers of wedding practices of today. Erika Piola Associate Curator, Prints and Photographs and Director, Visual Culture Program Sources: Ancestry.com accessed April 16 and 17, 2018. Crider & Brother, Publishers and Proprietors of the Original Photograph Marriage Certificates, York, Pa. (York, Pa., 1884). George Reeser Prowell, History of York County, Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1907), vol. 2, 497-498.

Wedding Industry, Victorian-Style

June 8, 2018/by nscalessa
Articles of Association. Manuscript on vellum, Philadelphia, July 1, 1731.

Shareholder Spotlight: Mr. Robert Grace

May 21, 2018/by nscalessa

Positively Philadelphia: New Art Exhibit Looks At 18th Century Philadelphia (KYW News Radio)

May 15, 2018/by nscalessa
Book on left, with errant leaf in place: Female Association of Philadelphia for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. The constitution of the Female Association of Philadelphia for the Relief of Women and Children in Reduced Circumstances. Philadelphia : Printed by Jane Aitken, 1803. Book on right, with last leaf missing: Van Pelt, Peter I.,1778-1861. The goodness of God to be praised by men ... : a discourse delivered on the fourth of July, in the North Brick Church / New-York : Printed by Pelsue and Gould, 1812.

The Errant Leaf

May 7, 2018/by nscalessa
Mike Verney Headshot

Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. Michael Verney

April 30, 2018/by Clare Lowry
Digitization at LCP: Civil War Ephemera 2

Digitization at LCP: Civil War Graphics and Ephemera

April 30, 2018/by Clare Lowry
Kate Field: Women's History Month Program

Kate Field: Women’s History Month Program

April 30, 2018/by Clare Lowry
Donald C. Taber, An Artist's Conception of Swarthmore Crest. A Highly Restricted Residential Park, ca. 1930. Pencil and watercolor.

To Beguile and Belie

April 30, 2018/by nscalessa

Join or Die!

April 13, 2018/by nscalessa
Dr. Cheryl Hicks Fellow

Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. Cheryl Hicks

April 10, 2018/by nscalessa
Charles Martin Crandall, Pigs in Clover ([Waverly, N.Y.]: [Waverly Toy Works], [ca. 1889]).

Shall We Play A Game?

March 30, 2018/by nscalessa
This image drawn by Frank H. Taylor shows a canal boat packed with passengers upon a horse-drawn railcar that was making its way through Philadelphia to points west. The scene was at Dock Street, by the Merchant’s Exchange Building.

LCP Collections Featured in Hidden City Philadelphia: Riding The Rails On Pennsylvania’s Original Turnpike

February 21, 2018/by nscalessa
Undivided sheet of Continental Currency, printed on blue paper for use as a counterfeit detector (Philadelphia: Printed by Hall and Sellers, 1776).

LCP in the News: Articulate

February 11, 2018/by nscalessa
Logo for the Franklin Circles

Franklin Circles in the News

February 5, 2018/by nscalessa
Phillis Wheatley, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London: A. Bell, 1773). Frontispiece portrait of Phillis Wheatley.

The Dr. Richard S. Newman Fellowship in African American History

January 31, 2018/by Ann McShane
Panel on Outing the Early American Past (left to right, Thomas J. Balcerski, James T. Downs, Kate Culkin, Connie King, and Richard Godbeer, Chair)

The Library Company Goes to AHA2018

January 31, 2018/by Ann McShane
Logo for the Franklin Circles

Franklin Circles Premiere Event

January 31, 2018/by Ann McShane
Fellow spotlight, Dr. John Garcia

Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. John Garcia 

January 31, 2018/by Ann McShane
Group in front of our cottage [Avocado, Sea Girt]. Bess, Helen Morris, Fannie Garrett & Fred Strawbridge [graphic].

Triumphs and Defeats of Family Research

October 23, 2017/by nscalessa
Jasmine Smith, African American History Subject Specialist and Reference Librarian

Welcoming Jasmine R. Smith to the Library Company!

October 18, 2017/by nscalessa
Aunt Phebe, Mcaboy's, N.C. [graphic].

African Americans and Lost History

September 18, 2017/by nscalessa
Lambdin, James Reid. Benjamin Franklin. (ca. 1880). Oil on canvas ; 50 x 40 inches ; Framed: 57 x 47 1/4 x (2 1/4+1 3/4)4 inches. http://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/digitool%3A59324

The Junto: Alive and Well in Philadelphia

September 6, 2017/by nscalessa
Augustus L. Weise. General Grant and His Family (Philadelphia: Joseph Hoover, 1866). Hand-colored lithograph. Purchased with funds from the Davida T. Deutsch Women’s History Fund.Currently on display at the entrance to the Reading Room is a small exhibition entitled “’And His Family’: Prints Depicting Famous Men at Home.”

Ulysses S. Grant and the 4th Annual Lecture in Honor of John C. Van Horne

September 1, 2017/by Ann McShane
Katherine Ibbett

Trinity College and the Library Company

September 1, 2017/by Ann McShane