Anyone who has taken our Philadelphia Artists hands-on-tour has seen some of the copper plates from American Entomology by Thomas Say, which was published in 1824 by the Academy of Natural Sciences, just up the street from us. Many of the plates are from drawings by Titian Peale, the youngest son of Charles Willson Peale. …
For those of you who missed last weekend’s Civil War History Consortium parade (luckily, it did not actually rain during the parade, although it was quite windy), here is a slideshow of photos from the event. The first image is of Robert Hicks, the director of the Mütter Museum, decked out in his surgeon’s uniform–here’s …
The Rosenbach started early with our Civil War 150th commemoration–our programming began on the anniversary of the election of Abraham Lincoln–but this week marked the 150th anniversary of the opening shots at Fort Sumter. Citation: Charleston Mercury extra. Charleston, 13 April 1861. AN .C477 Join the Rosenbach and other Philadelphia-area history organizations this Saturday for …
Anyone else getting tired of April showers already? Complaining about the weather is a time-honored tradition, and here are some rain-themed illustrations from English comic illustrator George Cruikshank to tide you over until the sun comes out. George Cruikshank. April from The comic almanack for 1835. London, 1835. 1954.1880.3200 George Cruikshank. Boys returning to school …
Come snow or sleet or freezing rain, things keep humming along here at the Rosenbach. We’ve been especially busy of late since we’ve been installing two new exhibits at the same time! Raving Beauty, a companion installation to Joseph Hallman’s upcoming performance, is now in the Drawing Room gallery. It wasn’t scheduled to open until …
The newest Jane Eyre film comes to Philly’s Ritz Five today, with Mia Wasikowska of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland playing Jane. I’m hoping to see it next weekend, but if anyone gets there sooner, drop a comment to let us know your thoughts–my friend expressed approval that they made Jane look sufficiently plain in …
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! What better day to check out our new Joyce exhibit–Exile Among Expats! Also, a hat tip to the Biblioklept blog for reminding me of the great humorous recounting of Irish heroes in the Cyclops episode of Ulysses (the blog also has a scan of Joyce’s appearance in the 1901 Irish census): …
As I mentioned a couple of weeks back in my original 6 Degrees of Rosenbach post, it’s slightly scary sometimes how many connections there are between disparate items in the Rosenbach collection. This was brought back to me (again) in a conversation with our Librarian, Elizabeth Fuller, after an event we held last week with …
Inspired by this week’s Oscars, which I did in fact watch, it seemed a fitting time to highlight some of the various awards and medals in the Rosenbach’s collection. (By the way, if you’ve seen The King’s Speech you might enjoy this Washington Post article about history and the movies) I thought I’d start with …
Quick, what 1885 poem by Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley was the namesake of a comic strip that debuted in 1924? This exact question came up when I was playing Quizzo with some friends on Tuesday night. (If you are not familiar with it, Quizzo is a bar trivia game played on teams) It was …