Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

21st Century Maps Inspired by Library Company Collections

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We were recently visited by Mark Adams and Jason Killinger of Eyes Habit, who were interested in viewing our map collections to gather inspirations for a map they were creating focusing on Philadelphia’s river wards.  In their words,…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Tin Toys and Pulley Animals: My First Month as a VCP Intern

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Toys inspire me. They always have, even back when I thought all their creators were probably dead. I like things that move and things that you can interact with as a viewer, whether they are in the fine art world or in a toy store. When…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

“Old Ironsides” in 2012

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During my recent trip to Boston to attend the Digital Directions conference, I was fortunate to visit the USS Constitution docked at the nearby Charleston Navy Yard after the closing session.  Knowing that we had various USS Constitution…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

What’s Your Type?

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Recently the Print Department acquired three Centennial Cabinets, sets of quirky souvenir cards printed in color on site at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. Manufacturers Empire Press Co., Degener & Weiller, and Greenwood & Batley…
Full calf, “sunk panel” on The Iris: An Illuminated Souvenir for 1851. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1851.

Binding Books with Ingenuity and Efficiency

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Lippincott, Grambo & Co. offered The Iris, An Illuminated Annual for 1851 in six different binding styles, two of which are shown above. At the top is what they advertised as “Turkey Morocco beveled, inlaid with Papier Maché”…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Root Beer and Ice Cream: Culinary Trade Cards at the Library Company

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How do you decide what food to buy? Despite all intentions, everyone’s shopping habits are influenced by the constant presence of advertising. From billboards to newspaper inserts, colorful images try to tell us that their product tastes better,…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Visual Essay of the Before Madison Avenue Conference, March 15-16, 2012

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The recent conference co-sponsored by VCP at LCP about the visual culture of early American advertising not only inspired thought-provoking discussions, it also inspired the library’s digitization technician and artist Concetta…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

How Did People Learn about the World before the World Wide Web?

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With the “Arab Spring” in the headlines over the past year, many people have needed a look at the map to figure out where these events were occurring. A quick Google search might start to fill us in nowadays, but how knowledgeable were people…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

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Despite their small size, the visual content of vignettes often provides narratives equal to those of large-format prints.  The advertisements of Philadelphia wood engraver Hugo Sebald (1825-1903), given by longtime donor David Doret,…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Exploring Ephemera

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As an intern in the Print and Photograph Department, I work frequently with the Library Company’s ephemera collection. Ephemera – a term first defined by Maurice Rickards in 1988 as the “minor transient documents of everyday life” –…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Marking African American History Month

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In 1926, Carter G. Woodson initiated Negro History Week, which during the bicentennial was expanded to Black History Month. Created to celebrate the achievements of African Americans, Black History Month also recognizes the central role played…
Detail of gilt birds from book cover.

Angry Birds

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This book cover has such interesting gold stamping. The unusual design of the four corner brasses incorporates images of animals in the swirls and curlicues. The birds look so determined as they fly under the ornaments!   I…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Mr. Rementer’s South Philly Pear Orchard

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I was recently contacted by James Rementer, a descendent of a South Philadelphia family that owned a pear orchard on Irish Tract Lane for more than a century before it was covered with landfill in the late 1800s. Though long gone, Irish…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

The Mourner’s Gift (1837)

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Connie King writes: Much as we send sympathy cards today, Americans gave small volumes of consolation literature to people who were in mourning during the early decades of the 19th century. In recent years, the Library Company has been able…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Things that Make You Go “Hmmm”

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When I first began working at the Library Company more than a decade ago, one of the first Print Department treasures I handled was the silhouette attributed to Raphaelle Peale showing the noted African American silhouettist Moses Williams.…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Library Company Collections on Flickr

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I’m an intern at the Library Company, working here for the first two weeks of January in the Print Department, doing various tasks relating to the Library Company’s collections of lithographs, drawings, cartoons, photographs, and other…
Albert Hatch's Philadelphia residence at 577 North Twenty-Fifth Street, ca. 1885.

Six Degrees of Shellenberger

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Do you remember the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?" I’ll bet you do, and I’ll bet you did not always need six steps to trace a relationship to this Philly native. I often make similar connections between historical figures in my work…