Imperfect History Blog – The Library Company of Philadelphia

Imperfect History Blog

The Imperfect History blog shares insights and progress about a project that provided an essential, illustrated chapter in the history of a centuries-old American institution that exists to empower and ideologically challenge the citizenry through knowledge acquired by visual works and printed words.

IHSymposiumFlier — Imperfect History Comes to a Close with Symposium
April 13, 2022/by Tristan Dahn

The Antiquarian (Boston: Senefelder & Co., 1830 or 1831). Hand-colored lithograph. American Antiquarian Society. — Visual Antiquarianism
March 15, 2022/by Tristan Dahn

William Jennings, Jamaican Belle, ca. 1920. Lantern slide. — A Philadelphia Photographer’s Visions of Race and Empire
February 15, 2022/by Tristan Dahn

Benjamin Ridgway Evans, North Side of Chestnut St., Extending from Sixth to Seventh St., 1851 (Philadelphia, ca. 1880). Watercolor. — Imperfect History Project
January 7, 2022/by Tristan Dahn

Imperfect History Exhibition Card — Imperfect History Online Exhibition is now live!
November 9, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

[Unidentified African American Man], ca. 1875. Albumen mounted on cardboard. — Uncovering Hidden Narratives in American Art
October 8, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Life & Age of Man. Stages of Man's Life from the Cradle to the Grave (New York: N. Currier, ca. 1847). Hand-colored lithograph. — Imperfect History
September 14, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

LCP's first online visual literacy workshop — Virtual Close Looking: The Library Company’s First Visual Literacy Workshop
July 27, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Samuel Broadbent, Portrait of an Unidentified African American Woman (Philadelphia, ca. 1850). Daguerreotype. — History and Representation
June 8, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Samuel Broadbent, Portrait of an Unidentified African American Woman (Philadelphia, ca. 1850). Daguerreotype. — The Imperfect History: Digital Catalog is Now Live!
May 5, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

[Mary Venning with her students in Philadelphia school yard], ca. 1945. Gelatin silver print. — Reconfiguring the Gaze
April 19, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Portrait photograph of Louise Sanders Venning inserted before page 32 of Stevens-Cogdell/Sanders-Venning Family Photograph Album, ca. 1860-1925. — (Im)perfect Pages
March 25, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

John Mackie Falconer, Fulton House, No. 121 South Second Street, Philadelphia. Watercolor, 1861. — Stolen and Recovered, or the Wandering Watercolor
February 12, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Wilkinson after John Singleton Copley, [The Wretched State of the Nation] (Philadelphia, January 20, 1766). Etching. Pierre Eugene Du Simitière Collection. — Minding the Gaps
January 14, 2021/by Tristan Dahn

Photo-Illustrators, [Interior of a medical clinic], ca. 1930. Gelatin silver print. — Exploring Racism in Medicine through LCP Graphics
November 13, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Interior of Library Company of Philadelphia, Locust Street Branch, ca. 1885. Platinum print in Library Company of Philadelphia scrapbook, ca. 1865-ca. 1971. — Upstairs, Downstairs at the Library Company of Philadelphia
October 2, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Marriott Canby Morris, Midway Plaisance-Dahomans, 1893. Lantern slide. — Seeing Double
October 2, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

“The Irrepressible Conflict” or the Republican Barge in Danger (New York: Currier & Ives, ca. 1860). Lithograph. — One Lithograph, Two “Readings”
August 24, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Miss Barton, Unidentified landscape, early 19th century. Watercolor. — Women Makers and Caretakers
July 22, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Joseph Pennell, Water Street Stairs (Philadelphia). Etching. Two shadowy figures stand at the top of an alley stairway in background, alley has many bills posted, man in sailor outfit in the bottom foreground. — My Beginnings at the Library Company
July 17, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Edward Williams Clay, The Smokers (New York: H. R. Robinson, 1837). Lithograph. — Wanting to Kick Myself: My First Days in the Graphic Arts Department
June 16, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

John L. Magee, Death of George Shifler in Kensington. Born Jan 24 1825. Murdered May 6 1844 (Philadelphia: William Smith, after 1850). Hand-colored lithograph. — Working with Graphics is Not Just Fun
May 28, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Invitation to A Walk on the Wild Side exhibition, 1993. — My Library Company Beginnings
March 11, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Kinaya Hassane, Curatorial Fellow — Henry Luce Foundation Funds Graphic Arts Department Curatorial Fellow and Two-Year Project Imperfect History: Curating the Graphic Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library
February 26, 2020/by Tristan Dahn

Imperfect History is supported by the Henry Luce Foundation, Walter J. Miller Trust, Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Jay Robert Stiefel and Terra Foundation for American Art.