I meant to post a link to this a while back, but back in July the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum announced that Abraham Lincoln’s writing had been found on papers carried by the Donner Party. Apparently James Reed, one of the organizers of the Donner Party, lived in Springfield Illinois and served with …
Upcoming Events
Something New
As promised, the “something new” this week is our new Westward Ho! exhibit, which opened on Wednesday. The exhibit got a nice shout out in the City Paper yesterday, so thanks to them for that. This show, like pretty much everything we do here at the Rosenbach, was a real team effort:it was co-curated by …
Something Blue
Picking up on last week’s theme of “something old”, I’m jumping to the end of the rhyme to highlight a few of my favorite “something blue” items in our collection. Patch box. 1954.2058 First off is this lovely blue box, which dates from the late eighteenth-century (ca 1790-1800). The picture doesn’t do it justice, but …
Something Old
It’s good to be back after a week’s vacation. Earlier this week I was giving a walk-through to some folks who were very interested in finding out about the oldest items in our collection. This is actually a question I’ve had several times, so for all of you who’ve wondered about this, here’s the answer. …
Poetry
As one last follow up on the Declaration of Independence, I’d like to give a hat-tip to our friends at Independence National Historical Park for their annual reading of the Declaration, which happens every July 8, the day the Declaration was first read publicly. It has become a bit of a collections department tradition to …
More on the Declaration
After I published last week’s musings on our copy of the Declaration I heard this story on NPR about the Library of Congress’s use of hyperspectral imaging to determine word changes in Jefferson’s rough draft. Apparently Jefferson changed the word “subjects” to “citizens,” no small matter. Here’s the official LC news release on the topic.
Declaration of Independence
Time is running out to see the Friend or Faux exhibit; its last day is July 11. In honor of the 4th, I thought I’d highlight one of the objects in the “Local Legends” section of the exhibit: the Rosenbach’s “manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence” which shows Thomas Jefferson’s original wording and indicates …
Taking a Fork
Several of the “today in history” websites list an interesting tidbit for June 25: “Fork introduced to American dining by Governor Winthrop” in 1630. As someone fascinated by culinary history, this caught my interest. Sadly, none of the sites gave citations, except to other websites , so I started digging. The June 25, 1630 date …
Bloomsday Bloomed!
Unsurprisingly, the focus around here for the past week was Bloomsday. Everything went really well; thank you to all of you who packed the house for Ulysses 101 on Monday, Declan Kiberd’s talk on Tuesday, and for the readings themselves yesterday. The fact that we moved to our Bloomsday rain location spared the city from …
Finding Your Way Around
First off, a very Happy Birthday to Maurice Sendak, who turns 82 today. Perhaps we can all celebrate by reading a Sendak book–there are scores to choose from. My son’s favorite is Pierre, from the Nutshell Library, while my daughter likes the Little Bear series. Or for the visual among us, check out this clip …