It’s been a great news week for the Rosenbach. Just in case you missed it, here’s a link to the Philadelphia Inquirer story about our Gratz aquisitions, and here are links to the coverage by KYW and WHYY of our Today in the Civil War blog. Not too shabby.
But never content to rest on our laurels, we’re moving forward with a new installation A Taste of History in the Drawing Room on the second floor. What is the Drawing Room, you ask? The Drawing Room (a.k.a. Gallery 3) is a flexible gallery space which illuminates how different people draw inspiration from our collections. The space can provide materials to support programming, as with the recent Dracula installation and with Taste of History which supports Kimberly Costa’s talk on November 18th. The Drawing Room can also be used to support Rosenbach artist projects, showcase educational partnerships, and any other ideas which we dream up.
The current installation was put together by Karen Schoenewaldt, our registrar, and Farrar Fitzgerald, our assistant director of education. It offers a veritable cornucopia for foodies through historic cookbooks, menus, recipes, 19th century children’s books, illustrations, tableware and more. I asked Karen about some of her favorite objects in the show and here’s her take on some of her picks:
Tenniel illustration from Alice in Wonderland–as she put it “the dormouse looks so cute as he is being stuffed into the teapot”
Hayes Stories for Children–“the children here are unspeakably well mannered and there’s a nice passage something like: (mother) “you love the nice milk warm from the cow, don’t you?” (Unspeakably well mannered child): “oh, yes, Mother, that is such a delicious treat”
Revere House menu–she asked me to note the”fine print” at the bottom, which reads in part: “Gentlemen having friends to dine, will please give notice at the office.Meals sent to rooms will be charged extra. Early dinners served in Ladies Ordinary, from 1 to 2 o’clock only. persons wishing for early dinner will please notify the office. Children occupying seats at the table will be charged full price. Dinner for children and nurses from 1 to 1 1-2 o’clock.”
Hungry yet? Then come on over and dig into some history.