#GiltyPleasures posters have arrived!! It isn’t long now until our opening on February 2nd. For more info visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/giltypleasures-tickets-4172636…#lcpgiltypleasures #iglibraries #lcpexhibits #lcpinsider#librariesofinstagram

This week’s #LibraryWonderland challenge finds us in February 1908 enjoying this ingenious sledding ramp with the Morris Family at their home in Germantown, Philadelphia.  

Morris, Marriott Canby, 1863-1948, photographer. [Sledding ramp, 131 W. Walnut Lane] [graphic]. February 1908. 1 photograph: film negative; 3 x 4.5 in. 

librarycompany:

Linda August, Curator of Arts and Artifacts and co-curator of the Library Company’s exhibit, Together We Win: The Philadelphia Homefront during the First World War, was inspired by food during her WWI research. Many of the recipes she found include the use of corn products, as well as alternatives to wheat flour and animal-based proteins and fats.

Together with Digital Outreach Librarians, Concetta Barbera and Arielle Middleman, she highlights recipes that embraced the food conservation effort through stop-motion animations and video. In honor of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, we wanted to share our first foray into the War-Time Cook and Health Book: Apple Brown Betty.  

You can see the full video at: 

http://togetherwewin.librarycompany.org/apple-brown-betty/

and explore the online exhibition here:

http://togetherwewin.librarycompany.org

Recipe From: Lydia E. Pinkham Medicine Company, War-Time: Cook and Health Book (Lynn, MA, 1917). Gift of William H. Helfand.

Music: General Pershing One Step

A throwback from our 2016 exhibition, Together We Win, for #ArchivesPotluck

We found three little kittens to help us with this week’s #ArchivesPotluck contribution!

These late 19th-century trade cards advertise Philadelphia baker H. Degenhardt, who was located at 2233 North Front Street.

From the Berman Collection of Philadelphia Trade Cards. P.2015.56.20-203

librarycompany:

Meet Phoebe Anne Ridgway Rush, our resident ghost. Phoebe first haunted the stacks of our Ridgway building - named for her family, and built with her fortune, which was bequeathed by her husband, James Rush, after her death. Both James and Phoebe’s remains rested in the foundation of the Ridgway Building, and when the LCP moved to its current home, their remains moved with us. Some say Phoebe rests peacefully now, but if the stacks are rearranged with no explanation, we know who is responsible. #librariesarethespiceoflifeordeath #LCPinsider

A throwback to an early Library Company social media hunt of our haunted halls (October 2015).

How long does it take to master broomstick hovering? 

This image is from another page from our copy of Spectropia. Apparently if you stare at the asterisk under the witch’s chin for a half a minute then look at a wall, the specter appears in red robes hovering next to a white moon. Today, we made the asterisk a moving target.

Spectropia, or Surprising spectral illusions : showing ghosts everywhere, and of any colour. New York : James G. Gregory, 1864.

Break out your Spectrespecs, because it is that time of year again where horsemen are headless, spooks linger in the corner of your eye, and skeletons are animated. 

This image from our copy of Spectropia… is one of many spooky optical illusions illustrated in this book.  

Spectropia, or Surprising spectral illusions : showing ghosts everywhere, and of any colour. New York : James G. Gregory, 1864.

At the Library Company of Philadelphia, it doesn’t get more #VintageLibrary than our original Lion’s Mouth Suggestion Box. 

Benjamin Franklin drafted the Library Company’s plans, rules, and articles of agreement in 1731, after he and a group of like-minded individuals conceived the idea of a subscription library in which all members would pool their financial resources in order to afford a larger and finer library than any one of them could have amassed individually.

The first book order was sent to England on March 31, 1732. The list of books ordered was representative of the kind of books that could be found in any good colonial American, or even English, private library. The largest portion included titles on history and travels, followed by literature. Small segments dealt with the sciences, theology, philosophy, economics, and linguistics. The works were useful because the desire for the books stemmed from the readers themselves as evidenced by the suggestion box, which reads:

Gentlemen are requested to deposite in the lion’s mouth the titles of such books as they may wish to have imported.

Franklin’s ingenious solution to the problem of access to books, the subscription library, was copied up and down the Atlantic seaboard from Salem, Massachusetts, to Charleston, South Carolina.

Suggestion Box. Lion’s Mouth Box. Painted metal ; 11 3/8 x 8 x 5 5/8 inches.

We don’t know what we love more about this circa 1880 lithographed trade card: the peppermint sticks, or that bonnet? #TreatsintheLibrary #HatsintheLibrary

A sweet tooth. [graphic]. [Philadelphia] [ca. 1880] 1 print : lithograph tinted with three stones ; 11 x 7 cm. (4.25 x 2.75 in.)

“this was my mother’s little book”

For #TheWritingHandKnows challenge, we are sharing this little book that was used as a notebook in the 19th century. The notebook contains entries dated from 1866 to 1884, many of which list the death date and relationship of deceased relatives. The inscription featured in this post reads “this was my mother’s little book” alongside a drawing with another inscription stating “my mother drew this picture”. Is it possible these inscriptions were added to the notebook after the original owner, the inscriber’s mother, passed away? Only #TheWritingHandKnows