LCP News – Page 15 – The Library Company of Philadelphia

RayLee Otero-Bell

African American Women and Historical Agency

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Intern Spotlight: Lydia Shaw

Intern Spotlight: Lydia Shaw

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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

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Articles of Association. Manuscript on vellum, Philadelphia, July 1, 1731.

Shareholder Spotlight: Mr. Robert Grace

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

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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

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Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. Michael Verney

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Digitization at LCP: Civil War Ephemera 2

Digitization at LCP: Civil War Graphics and Ephemera

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Kate Field: Women's History Month Program

Kate Field: Women’s History Month Program

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Join or Die!

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Dr. Cheryl Hicks Fellow

Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. Cheryl Hicks

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Charles Martin Crandall, Pigs in Clover ([Waverly, N.Y.]: [Waverly Toy Works], [ca. 1889]).

Shall We Play A Game?

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Mothers of Gynecology by Michelle D. Flamer

Mothers of Gynecology

Dr. Deidre Cooper Owens at the Library Company of Philadelphia

Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology

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

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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

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Franklin Circles in the News

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Phillis Wheatley at her desk, one hand under her chin, the other with poised quill.

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

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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

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Fellow Spotlight: Meet Dr. John Garcia

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