As we wrap up the year, here are a few vintage Christmas and New Year’s cards to enjoy from the Rush-Biddle-Williams family papers. Some of them are quite different from our modern cards. To my eye, the 1910 example sent by Mary B. Deedes to Marion Biddle seems more spring-like than holiday, and the idea …
Whenever I give presentations involving 19th-century manuscripts, people are always fascinated by the practice of cross-writing. This is the practice of writing a letter and then turning it 90 degrees and writing the opposite way. We have a number of examples of this from our collection, such as this Civil War letter from Alexander Biddle …
Although this 1824 print by George Cruikshank was doubtless intended as a dig at the stereotypically spoiled French dandy, I often find myself admiring the dandy’s set up, especially as we head into the craziness of the holiday season. The idea of relaxing in a brimming full hot bathtub while getting to enjoy a hot …
Although Thanksgiving wouldn’t be formally established as an official annual holiday until 1862, the practice of setting aside days of Thanksgiving goes back much further. Colonial legislatures, especially in New England, issued periodic Thanksgiving Proclamations and the Continental Congress designated a day of Thanksgiving every year from 1777 to 1782. You can find the full …
I remember as a child being fascinated with my baby book; I would periodically pull it off the shelf in my mother’s study to look at it and compare it with my brother’s. When I became a parent, I, in turn, bought baby books for my children, although I wasn’t always consistent in filling them …
This small French flag is a nearly 100-year-old souvenir of the visit of an important World War I figure to Philadelphia. According to its envelope, this is a “Flag thrown from Marshal Joffre’s automobile while visiting Phila. Pa- May 9-1917.” Joseph Jacques Joffre had been commander of the French army during the Battle of the …
Between the crazy drama of this election season and the crazy popularity of the musical Hamilton, it seems an apropos time to look at some on-the-spot reporting from the crazy election of 1800. For those of you who have seen or listened to Hamilton, or just remember your history books, you’ll recall that the election …
Unless you come from the Midwest or from Amherst, Massachusetts., the name Eugene Field may not instantly ring a bell. However, you probably know some of the works of this poet and newspaper columnist best remembered for his sentimental pieces for children and about childhood (although he also translated Horace and wrote an erotic story …
I’ve written before about our current Freedom Train exhibition , but one element I ran across in my research and was unable to include in the exhibition was an episode of the popular Cavalcade of America radio show promoting the train. At a half-hour long, it was too long for exhibit audio, but I thought …
Following up on last week’s post on our cockfighting chair, I thought I’d highlight another interesting set of chairs in our collection in anticipation of next Thursday’s conversation on the history of the chair with Witold Rybczynski. If you’ve been on a Rosenbach house tour, you’ve seen these English mahogany chairs around the dining room …