Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Twelve: John Jay Smith’s Manuscript Memoir

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My favorite thing of the moment is a hefty, three-volume manuscript memoir and scrapbook made by our former Librarian John Jay Smith (1798-1881). Through it I discovered that the man in the portrait with the white beard and red fez had a wonderful…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Eleven: “Teaching with Capital Success”

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Like many of my colleagues, I find it impossible to choose just one favorite thing from our collection. Nevertheless, I’d like to shine a spotlight on a humble but intriguing item, an annual report. Since I trained as an archivist, it’s…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Nine: Thanksgiving 1864 – A Spectacle of Giving

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Today, November 26, 2013, is the 150th anniversary of what many regard as the first official national celebration of Thanksgiving, as proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Lincoln proclaimed many days of national thanksgiving during his time…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Eight: Marriott C. Morris Photograph Collection

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One of my Print Department favorites is the Marriott C. Morris collection of photographic prints and negatives. Morris (1863-1948) was an amateur photographer who lived in Philadelphia, and the more than 1,500 photographs in this collection…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Seven: Happy Birthday, Marines!

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As Curator of Printed Books, trying to identify a favorite item in the Library Company’s collection feels like being asked to pick a favorite from among my children.  The fact is that my favorite item in the collection is the collection.…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Six: Men in Jaunty Aprons

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We had not yet added our visual material holdings to our online catalog when I discovered this print in our portrait collections through the tried and true hunt and peck method. I was immediately smitten when I came across this trimmed and annotated…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Five: Uzbek Connection

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Last summer, the International Visitor’s Council in Philadelphia asked the Library Company to host a group from Uzbekistan visiting the US for a State Department-sponsored program on library conservation.  On July 23, I welcomed a delegation…
Exposed sewing.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Four: Learning from a Damaged Book, Margarita Philosophica (Basel, 1508)

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Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Three: William Jennings’s Ralph, Sara, and Bill Jennings at Fern Rock Camp

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How does one pick a favorite from a collection of nearly 100,000 graphic items? (I refused to even consider selecting a favorite from our book, manuscript, or art and artifact collections in order to make the task at least a little bit more…
From The Book of trades, or Library of the useful arts. Part I.  Published by Jacob Johnson, and for sale at his book-store in Philadelphia, and in Richmond Virginia.  1807

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part Two: The Book of Trades

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One of my favorite books in the Library Company’s collection is The Book of Trades (Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 1851). Produced in many English-language editions in the 19th century, the book of trades reflects a trend in early childhood…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

A Few of Our Favorite Things, Part One: Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy

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This is the first of a series of blog posts by Library Company staff about their favorite things in the collection.  Picking a favorite book is like picking a favorite child, except that we have half a million to choose from.  But here goes. Charles…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

Hot Town, Summer in the City…of Philadelphia

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While I enjoy my internship at the Library Company’s Print Department and work days are never dull, there is something special about the mythic summer weekend, the fleeting two-day space of freedom immortalized in film and song.  Every Thursday…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

My First Weeks as the LCP Print Department Intern

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Returning my tomes on medieval medicine to the library, clearing my computer of the multiple drafts of papers and paragraphs cluttering Word document folders, and having taken my last trip to the Quaker and Special Collections at Haverford…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

Let’s Get the Lead Out, or Why Paints and Drugs Do Mix

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Philadelphia was home to many early chemical and paint companies. The nineteenth century found these two industries to be integrally related by virtue of the fact that alcohol was a prime ingredient in both. One paint company, the John Lucas…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

Off to the Fair

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As Co-Director of the Visual Culture Program, I am always on the lookout for new materials to add to the library’s visual culture collections. Ephemera has become a particular focus of my treasure hunting in the last year. Although online…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

Abolitionist Women at Pennsylvania Hall

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As noted in a previous post, this year marks the 175th anniversary of the dedication of Pennsylvania Hall. Constructed as a forum for free discussion of abolitionism and other reform movements, the building was inaugurated on May 14,…
Robert Newell, American Mechanic, Arch Street below 8th, Philada., albumen print stereograph, ca. 1864.

Commemorating Abolitionism in 1830s Philadelphia

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On April 23rd, Beverly Tomek, a former Library Company fellow, took part in a panel discussion on her upcoming publication on the Pennsylvania Hall entitled Pennsylvania Hall: A ‘Legal Lynching’ in the Shadow of the Liberty Bell,…