Vivarium Naturae, or, The Naturalist’s Miscellany was issued by members of the Nodder family between 1789 and 1813.  After her husband Frederick died, widow Elizabeth Nodder took over the business. Elizabeth’s life remains a mystery, but the 19th-century volumes of The Naturalist’s Miscellany show that she persevered following the death of Frederick . Her legacy is the later volumes in this series, with their extraordinarily beautiful natural history plates. To read a bit more, check out the post on our blog by LCP Conservator, Alice Austin.

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.

The Graphic Arts Collection boasts a large collection of photographs that document the multi-faceted nature of womanhood in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This photograph from the Stevens-Cogdell/Sanders-Venning Collection features two women enjoying a sunny day on a tennis court.

Photograph from the Stevens-Cogdell/Sanders-Venning Collection.

Today marks the 251st anniversary of the Boston Massacre, a bloody brawl between colonists and British soldiers which paved the way for the American Revolution. 

Killed in the massacre was Crispus Attucks, a freedman and dockworker, making him the first American killed in the Revolution. 

This engraving by Paul Revere depicts the conflict with 18 lines of verse criticizing the actions of the British and a list of colonists killed or injured printed below. 

Paul Revere. The bloody massacre perpetuated in King Street, Boston, on March 5th, 1770, by a party of the 25th Regt. Boston: Republished at 15 Water St, March 5, 1832.

Apparently we are late to the #nationalpigday party, but we brought this #publishersbinding and really hope that makes up for us being tardy.

Joseph Harris. Harris on the pig. New York: Orange Judd and Company, [1870].

It’s March, which means Spring is just around the corner, and it’s Women’s History Month.  In honor of all that good news, we are sharing some plates from Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal.  Blackwell was not only a talented artist, but also a keen and resourceful  businesswoman.  After her husband was sent to debtors prison, she began working on her herbal as a means to support herself and her child,  including in it many previously unrecorded plants thus making the volume of great interest to apothecaries and the medical community. Over the course of two years she drew, engraved, and hand-colored all 500 plates.

 
This volume  is a 1739 reissue of the 1737 edition, and bears the bookplate of Richard Hopton. The bookplate is inscribed: “Painted by his Wife [i.e., Elizabeth Geers Hopton] & two younger Daughters [i.e., Elizabeth and Frances?].”

A curious herbal, containing five hundred cuts, of the most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick. Engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings, taken from the life. By Elizabeth Blackwell. London: John Nourse, 1739.

John H. Webster was an amateur photographer based in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia. Pictured here is his wife, Jane Lownes Webster, posing in front of a paper backdrop hung from the porch of her family’s homestead in Springfield, PA. 

John H. Webster, [Jane Lownes Webster posing near porch, George Bolton Lownes homestead, Baltimore Pike and Woodland Avenue, Springfield, Pa.], ca. 1900. Glass negative.

Save the date and join LCP for the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America’s (ABAA) California Virtual Book Fair: March 4-6, 2021. LCP is pleased to be a cultural partner in support of this event. Nearly 200 exhibitors from around the globe are featuring new acquisitions, discoveries, and rare finds exclusively at the Virtual Book Fair, which begins at 9 a.m. (PST). California Calls You - join us at http://ow.ly/qyZL50DHLIJ. 

A variety of talks and virtual tours will also be hosted during the three-days of the fair, including a special session featuring the winner of the California Young Book Collector’s Prize, now in its third year. Other guests include former California Poet Laureate Dana Gioia and Peter R. Koch, fine press printer and co-founder of Codex Foundation; a special talk about the influence of Hugo and Nebula award-winning writer Octavia Butler; “Ranger" Doug Leen will discuss his mission to track down every unique poster made for the National Park Service by Works Progress Administration artists in the 1930s and 1940; and more. 

Sign up for notifications about the fair here: http://ow.ly/EuV150DHLI

Photograph taken at the Ridgway Branch of the Library Company of Philadelphia, ca. 1950.

“Coal is still a primary source of energy across the globe, but now it stands for the opposite of modernity. Aware, as we are, of the disastrous effects that extracting and burning coal has on the environment, coal has been practically banished from the visual/cultural landscape. Out of sight and out of mind?  But coal is full of portent. It is a bellwether material of the Human/Nature/Time relationship which deserves our attention." 

 In advance of the exhibition ‘Seeing Coal - Time, Material and Scale,’ LCP Conservator and exhibition curator Andrea Krupp wrote about her research. Read the full essay here

 Image: George Lehman, Coal Mine at Mauch Chunk (Philadelphia: C.G. Childs, ca.1837). Lithograph. 

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.