In two weeks, on September 22, our “In Conversation with the Rosenbach” series will feature a conversation on the history of the chair with architectural writer Witold Rybczynski, author of Now I Sit Me Down: From Klismos to Plastic Chair, A Natural History. There are more than 60 chairs in the Rosenbach’s decorative arts collection, but …
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Happy Birthday to the National Parks
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, which was created on August 25, 1916. In celebration, here are two great National Park items from our collection. Yellowstone was established in 1872 as the first National Park (there were individual parks before the system to administer them was created). Drawing on the precedent …
An American-Born Faith
The past year has been a busy year for religious events in Philadelphia. Last September the city hosted the World Meeting of Families, capped off by the pope’s visit, and now the Latter-day Saint community is welcoming thousands of visitors to an open house in advance of the September dedication of its new Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple. …
New Book Arts Tour on Sunday!
Do you know what a rubricator does? Or what a morocco binding looks like compared to Russia leather. Have you ever gotten up close with a medieval manuscript or a Kelmscott Press book by William Morris? All this and more is part of our new Book Arts Hands on Tour, being offered for the first …
Coffee Break
I am not a coffee drinker, but many of my colleagues at the Rosenbach definitely enjoy a good cup. So when I was paging through issues of the Oregon Statesman looking for possible references to the 1859 Pig War (more on that another time) and ran across a front-page tidbit entitled “Coffee,” it caught my …
The DNC Comes to Philadelphia–In 1936
Philadelphia is gearing up for next week’s arrival of the Democratic National Convention and museums across town have been highlighting their historical and political collections. We, of course, have our Freedom Train exhibition, looking at a project that both celebrated American history and raised questions (intentionally and unintentionally) about what freedom means. The Constitution Center …
The Art of Making Money Plenty
While doing some shelf reading yesterday I ran across around little volume entitled The Art of Making Money Plenty in Every Man’s Pocket, printed by Samuel Wood around 1811. The get rich quick title caught my eye and when I opened it up I was fascinated to see that it was presented in the form …
Founding Fathers for the Fourth
As we gear up for July 4th weekend, we wanted to kick off the festivities with some fabulous founding father documents to put us in the spirit. This document regarding Washington’s role as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army is currently on display in our Freedom Train exhibition. Dr. Rosenbach lent it to the original Freedom …
Freedom Train Exhibit on Track at the Rosenbach!
Our newest exhibit, Freedom Train 1947-1949: Exhibiting America’s Past to Shape America’s Future, opens next Friday, July 1, and the collections staff has been hard at work on installation. The Freedom Train was a massive traveling exhibition of over 125 American historical documents, housed in a specially designed train, that crossed the country from September …
Ulysses Throughout the House
Today is the day after Bloomsday, but I wanted to squeeze in a Bloomsday blog post anyway. (Technically,since the day described in the book ends after midnight, maybe June 17 could be grandfathered in a little?) This year we extended our Bloomsday festival into the historic house: facsimiles of passages from the manuscript were spread …