What Poet Changed Your Life?

When I was in third grade, I participated in a poetry-writing workshop that was held in my hometown’s art museum; the idea was for us third-graders to write and workshop a poem inspired by an artwork or artifact on display. I remember roaming around the museum with my classmates, all on our best church behavior, quietly and gravely examining the …

Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson: painters, partners, and paragons of art education

Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art & History showcases the creations of romantic couples who inspired, instructed, or even assisted one another in making art or knowledge. In anticipation of Women’s History Month beginning tomorrow, we shine the spotlight on two remarkable women who were artists, partners, and educators in an era when it was unusual for …

Celebrating History’s Unsung Creative Couples

On February 7, we opened a new exhibition celebrating the art and achievements of romantic couples, from the powerful royalty of the 16th century to cinema stars of Old Hollywood to local artists creating together today. Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art and History not only challenges the notion that creativity and authorship are solo endeavors, …

Romance at the Rosenbach

Love is in the library: over the holidays, two visitors got engaged while on a tour of the historic house. Admittedly, some of us were in on the plan. One of our artistic staff members created a library display case with a copy of the bride-to-be’s favorite book, Jane Eyre, opened to the page with the famous line “Reader, I …

Frankenstein200 at the Rosenbach

On January 1, 1818, the London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones published a book titled Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. The publication did not name its author, but the book had an preface written by Percy Bysshe Shelley and a dedication to writer and philosopher William Godwin, so some readers assumed that the …

Bringing the science of Frankenstein & Dracula to life

In 1803, London was shocked by a public experiment conducted by an Italian scientist named Giovanni Aldini—nephew of Luigi Galvani, whose experiments with electrical currents gave the term galvanism its name. Aldini acquired the body of a recently executed criminal (a perfectly legal transaction, thanks to England’s Murder Act of 1752) and applied electric stimulus to the …

The Science of Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Since Frankenstein & Dracula: Gothic Monsters, Modern Science opened on Friday the 13th of October, I’ve fielded a few questions from surprised visitors: Dracula, really? It’s not difficult to see the connection between Frankenstein and the scientific theme of our new exhibition, but many readers are surprised to see us categorize Dracula as another gothic …

The Rosenbach Celebrates 200th Anniversary of Frankenstein with Frankenstein & Dracula Exhibiton

The Rosenbach 2008-2010 Delancey Place Philadelphia, PA 19103 Contact: Sara Davis Phone: 215-732-1600 x 132 Email: [email protected] The Rosenbach Celebrates 200th Anniversary of Frankenstein with Frankenstein & Dracula Exhibiton Pages of Mary Shelley’s handwritten draft of Frankenstein to be displayed alongside Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula for the first time PHILADELPHIA, September 20, 2017—The Rosenbach …