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"The rocks are, indeed, full of the monuments of time, but we have not yet learned to fully decipher them." - J. Donaldson.

This item, and more, on display in our exhibition #SeeingCoal

seeingcoal.librarycompany.org

From: J. Donaldson. The geological staircase: containing the steps of rocks and floors of alluvium. London: James Cornish, [1855].

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Today, we're highlighting the research of Bianca Dang, a PhD candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale and former LCP fellow:

"As a Fellow in the Mellon Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP), I had the opportunity to undertake research utilizing a number of LCP's rare books and pamphlets. I was especially grateful for the occasion to engage with nineteenth-century texts by African Americans which emphasized the importance of the Haitian Revolution.

I worked with each of the works pictured for chapters of my dissertation, which traces the gendered dimensions of the personal and political connections that African Americans and Haitians formed throughout the nineteenth century."

J. Dennis Harris. A Summer on the Borders of the Caribbean Sea. New York: A.B. Burdick, 1860.

James McCune Smith. A Lecture on the Haytien Revolutions with a Sketch of the Character of Toussaint L'Ouverture. New York: Printed by Daniel Fanshaw, 1841.

James Theodore Holly. A Vindication of the Capacity of the Negro Race for Self-Government, and Civilized Progress. New Haven: William H. Stanley, 1857.

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During Fall 2020, Erika Piola, Curator of Graphic Arts and Director of the Visual Culture Program had the pleasure to work with Temple University Assistant Professor of American Art Erin Pauwel’s class Art & Spectacle in the 19th-Century United States. One of the results of this collaboration is this blog post by Emily Schollenberger, who wrote about the 1896 album "Memories of the Homes of Grandma Lewis." Read more here: https://librarycompany.org/2021/02/16/albums-as-in-archives-whose-identity-is-preserved/ 

Anne C. Lewis, Frontispiece in Memories of the Homes of Grandma Lewis, 1896. Library Company of Philadelphia, P.9829.2. 

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Can you picture yourself here? Women workers in 19th-century bookbinding as portrayed in The Great Industries of the United States (1872). The women wear identical clothing, their hair in identical buns, sitting in rows with robotic posture. One wonders at the uniformity of these women. Was the artist trying to depict the inhumane treatment of factory workers? Or did the artist merely wish to illustrate the growing role of women in the industrial workplace? Women often worked in bookbinding or shoemaking, industries involving sewing, a traditional domestic task.

-Lydia Shaw, Franklin & Marshall Class of 2022

This item and more will be featured in the exhibition Women Get Things Done, opening soon at the Library Company of Philadelphia!

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Special delivery! It's a new blog post by Senior Curator of Graphic Arts Sarah Weatherwax! Learn more about some of the items in the Graphic Arts collection which illustrate the history of horse-drawn delivery services in the nineteenth century: https://librarycompany.org/2020/05/21/special-delivery/

Philadelphia on a Busy Day. Photomechanical postcard, ca. 1915.

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In antebellum Philadelphia riots were endemic, sometimes connected to protest, but mostly they were simply riots. The rioters were all white, and their victims were mostly free Blacks, making these riots a significant expansion of the systemic violence against Black people in America that has continued almost without a break for hundreds of years.

The most famous riot of the period was the burning of Pennsylvania Hall on May 17, 1838. The hall had just been built by the Pennsylvania Abolition Society as a venue for their public meetings, a “temple of free discussion” of antislavery, women’s rights, temperance, and other reforms. Four days after it opened it was torched by a mob, said to have been organized by a group of “gentlemen from a certain section of the country.” What angered the rioters was not only what the speakers said but also the fact that so many of them were women and African Americans, and that Blacks and whites sat together in the audience without separation. The police made no effort to intervene, and the several fire companies that converged on the site refused to fight the fire, instead pointing their hoses at the houses around the hall. In the days that followed rioters also torched the Friends Shelter for Colored Children and damaged the AME Mother Bethel Church.

More about protest, riots, Robert Purvis, California House, Frank Webb's "The Garies," and more on the latest Pandemic Reading from Librarian Jim Green. Now up on the blog at www.librarycompany.org/news

Image 1: J.C. Wild, Pennsylvania Hall, hand-colored lithograph (Philadelphia, 1838). 

Image 2: J.C. Wild, Destruction by Fire of Pennsylvania Hall, hand-colored lithograph (Philadelphia, 1838).

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In her latest Imperfect History blog post, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts Sarah Weatherwax traces the history of women collectors through graphic materials donated to the Library Company, some of which were also created by women. Read more here: https://librarycompany.org/2020/07/22/women-makers-and-care-takers/ 

Miss Barton, Unidentified landscape, early 19th century. Watercolor. 

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Quarantine is not new. In the U.S., quarantine began in response to yellow fever. In 1742, after an outbreak the year before, a quarantine station was opened on Province Island where the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers meet. The 1753 Scull and Heap map shows a “pest house” there, called the Lazaretto. In 1799, after three successive annual outbreaks of fever (that’s not counting the 1793 calamity), the city created a board of health, which built a much larger Lazaretto a few miles farther downstream at Essington, a few hundred yards from what is now the west end of the airport runway. That building still stands.  Librarian Jim Green talks more about the Lazaretto, quarantine, and isolation in his latest Pandemic Reading, now on the blog. 

Image 1: Nicholas Scull and George Heap. A map of Philadelphia and parts adjacent. [S.l.: s.n, 1753] . 

Image 2: By Smallbones, Public Domain

#BensLibrary #PandemicReading #LCPonline #quarantine #yellowfever #Lazaretto #History