Beach season is winding down as the end of the summer approaches and here at the Rosenbach we’re starting to gear up for Alice-in-Wonderland season as we make preparations for “Down the Rabbit Hole” a three gallery exhibit that will open October 14, along with a fabulous slate of programs ranging from a conversation with …
Hi everyone! This is another blog post by this summer’s collection’s intern, Allison! This time, I’m focusing on a letter from 1571 written by Mary, Queen of Scots. The Rosenbach has the first two pages of the letter in their collection and we wrote a blog post about it back in 2013. That post, however, …
As Jobi’s post last week pointed out, one of the rewards of shelf reading is discovering items in the collection which one has never noticed before. As Patrick and I were working our way through British Literature we ran across a petite pleasure: two copies of The Comic Bijou. Comic Bijou. London: Rock Brothers & …
Since this is my first Rosen-blog post, I thought I would tell you a few things about myself: I love pencils, spreadsheets, organizing things, and my birthday. Starting collections inventory the week of my birthday is pretty much the best present (if present is defined as ‘work activity’) I could ask for! Conducting inventory is …
This week marks the 200th anniversary of the final surrender of Napoleon. Defeated at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815, Napoleon retreated to Paris and then fled towards Rochefort, hoping to escape on a French frigate and head to the United States. A British blockade prevented his escape and on July 15th, 1815 …
Hi everyone! I’m Allison, the Rosenbach’s newest collections intern! I’ve just returned to Philadelphia after spending the past semester abroad in London, England. I was so excited to explore all of the works by all of the British authors at the Rosenbach. Eventually, I came across a number of works by Charlotte Brontë, but one …
With last Friday’s Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage and this weekend’s commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the 1965 march in Philadelphia that helped spark the LGBT-rights movement, it seems a good time for a post about one of the most famous lesbian figures in the Rosenbach collection: the writer and socialite Mercedes de …
What do the Marianne Moore room and the American Samoa state quarter have in common? They both feature a tanoa. A tanoa, as I just learned this week, is a Samoan ceremonial bowl. Marianne Moore’s brother Warner sent her the bowl as a gift, presumably when he was stationed in Samoa as a Navy chaplain …
“I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality.” Jame’s Joyce’s famous quip about Ulysses is a challenge which exhibition curator Beth Blum takes up in this year’s Bloomsday exhibition: Deciphering Ulysses: A …
Is your home equipped with a monteith? The Rosenbach certainly is. John Sutton, monteith. London, 1708. 1954.1784 Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia What, you may well ask is a monteith. A monteith is a vessel with a notched rim that served to hold the feet of stemware while their bowls were chilled in …