Read Peter Crimmins’ (WHYY) review of our current exhibition, From Negro Pasts to Afro-Futures: Black Creative Re-Imaginings, which highlights this circa 1872 lithograph of seven African Americans who were newly-elected to Congress.

https://whyy.org/articles/historic-african-american-visions-of-a-life-of-freedom-and-elegance/

Up now through October 18, 2019, this exhibition is supported by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society Endowment Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation.

Currier & Ives, publisher. The first colored senator and representatives, [graphic] : In the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States. New York: c1872. 1 print: lithograph; 30 x 42 cm.

The Library Company is closed today in observation of Memorial Day, a day we remember those who lost their lives while serving in the armed forces. 

Pictured here are wounded WWI veterans alongside an American Civil War veteran (front center), photographed in Philadelphia on May 15, 1919.

Unidentified photographer. Returned wounded boys of 28th Division with G.A.R. veteran in Philadelphia, May 15, 1919.  Photograph: gelatin silver (7.75 X 10 in.)

Opening today! 

From Negro Pasts to Afro-Futures: Black Creative Re-Imaginings

Stop by today, or join us tonight for the opening reception 530pm-7pm. Visit the following link for more info: https://librarycompany.org/portfolio-item/from-negro-pasts-to-afro-futures/

Learn the hand signing alphabet with this graphic printed in Philadelphia (ca. 1850). 

David G. Seixas Philadelphia [graphic] : The Deaf & Dumb Language [Alphabet in hand signing]. Philadelphia, ca. 1850. 1 print :  wood engravings ;  9 x 21 cm. (3.5 x 8.25 in.)

By June 1861 an “Envelope Mania” had taken hold of the Union, which, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, was an economic boon for engravers, stationers, and printers who had “no cause to complain of a lack of business” while others struggled to adjust to the new wartime economy. This collecting fad was made possible by recent innovations to methods of graphics printing. Civil War–era printers in the North fed the frenzy by producing patriotic, sentimental, and satiric illustrations that covered the entire fronts of wrappers and rendered them nearly unusable as anything other than collectors’ items. Consequently, many of these pieces never made it into circulation, but rather were saved in the scrapbooks of “collectors of curiosities” like Philadelphian John A. McAllister (1822–1896), who gave his collection of Civil War ephemera to the Library Company of Philadelphia in 1886. 

These envelopes, engraved and lithographed with images of soldiers engaged in heated battle, enslaved African Americans depicted as human contraband, and the stoic visage of Abraham Lincoln, appeared within weeks of the start of the conflict. Over 6,000 envelope designs flooded the market during the war; the majority (about 4,000) between 1861 and 1862. These “queer devices” (as described by the Inquirer) that proved an economic windfall for Northern stationery printers and purveyors not only document the politics of the nation, but also provide valuable information about mid-19th-century consumer and visual culture and the social and technological changes that impacted it during this critical period in our nation’s history. #MagnificentCollections

Browse our McAllister Collection of Civil War Envelopes & Stationary.

This week for #MagnificentCollections we highlight Helen Beitler (1915-2002), a descendent of the Morris and Wistar families who unabashedly collected ephemera representing numerous subjects, including advertising — the profession of her husband. The Library Company acquired hundreds of pieces of advertising ephemera from her eclectic, yet refined collection, including postcards, billheads and envelopes, programs, advertisements,  and calendars following her death in 2002.

To see more visit: The Helen Beitler Graphic Ephemera Collection

On this day in 1888, it was not raining and the Morris family garden was in full bloom. Who can resist spending a day here especially with that good doggo waiting for you?

Morris, Marriott Canby, 1863-1948, photographer. View in our garden, looking up from end of stone path. [Deshler-Morris House, 5442 Germantown Ave] [graphic]. May 13, 1888. 1 photograph: glass negative; 4 x 5 in.

For this week’s #MagnificentCollections we highlight Emily Phillips, a collector of some of our favorite trade cards. 

Emily Phillips (1822-1909), descended from one of the first Philadelphia Jewish families, gave her collection of trade cards to the Library Company in 1882. A shareholder in the Library and a philanthropist, Phillips supported several local Jewish benevolent organizations, including the Hebrew Education Society and the Jewish Maternity Association, while collecting nearly two thousand trade cards representing all manner of Victorian Philadelphia businesses from ice to velocipedes.

Visit the trade card collection HERE.

It is National Bike Month and we wanted to celebrate by showing this lantern slide shot by William Harvey Doering of a woman standing next to her bicycle in Long Island, N.Y. (1900). There is nothing like riding a bike on a cool Spring day, and for women in 1900, cycling was a piece of independence. 

Doering, William Harvey, 1858-1924, photographer. [Woman standing with bicycle in front of hedge near path, Long Island, N.Y.] [graphic]. ca. 1900. 1 slide: lantern; 8 x 11 cm.(3 x 4 in.)

Drs. Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen claims to aid any number of ailments from headaches to tuberculosis, just inhaling this cure will increase blood flow to where it needs to go. Or, maybe just breathe some fresh air. The seaworthy man in this picture may be doing both, or maybe he’s about to dump the bottle’s contents into the sea. 

[Drs. Starkey & Palen’s Compound Oxygen, 1529 Arch Street, Philadelphia] [graphic]. [Philadelphia?] [ca. 1887] 1 print : chromolithograph ; 11 x 15 cm. (4.25 x 6 in.)