The first #WednesdayChallenge of 2020 asks us to share some of our #OutOfThisWorld collections, and we thought we’d start with this astrological plate from Comenius’s Janua Linguarum Trilinguis, which features the twelve signs of the #zodiac. 

The accompanying text is printed in three columns in three languages- English, Latin, and Greek. This pictorial phrasebook was intended to help students learn language through description of familiar things and by associating words with images.

Happy New Year! We hope your #horoscope is looking good!

Comenius, Johann Amos. Janua Linguarum Trilinguis. Londini:  ex Officina Rogeri Danielis, 1662.

Well there’s one way to cure holiday stress! 

[Carter Medicine Co. trade cards] ([New York]: [ca. 1885]). Lithograph.

Image depicts a large frog towering over a small, frightened child and a little girl pointing and instructing her ailing grandfather to take Carter’s back ache plasters.

This beautiful marbled paper was used for the #endpapers on our copy of “Historical remarques and observations of the ancient and present state of London and Westminster.” Love those colors and those swirls!

R. B. Historical remarques and observations of the ancient and present state of London and Westminster. London: printed for Nath. Crouch,1681.

We here at the Library Company wish you the best for the holiday season!

This image features a page from a scrapbook compiled by Minnie Campbell Wilson (neé Harris), ca. 1877-1890. 

Can you spot the difference between these two wintry scenes? 

First image: Henry Graeff, Delaware River Canal, ca. 1910-ca. 1940. Ink, watercolor, and color pencil drawing. Second image: Henry Graeff, Delaware River Canal, River House Near New Hope, ca. 1910-ca. 1940. Ink, watercolor, and color pencil drawing. 

Images depict two versions of an inn and a snow covered landscape along the Delaware River Canal.

While there might not be any snow in the forecast this week, we’re still feeling plenty of holiday cheer!

Marriott Canby Morris, [Marriott Canby Morris Jr. rolling large snowball], 1909. Film negative.

Image depicts Marriott C. Morris’ son Marriott Canby Morris Jr. as a boy rolling a large snowball across a snowy field, likely at their home at 131 W. Walnut Lane. He wears a dark jacket. A path crosses the field in the background and houses are visible behind the path. 

Happy #FinisFriday indeed! Not only did we make it to the end of the work week, but also to the end of the work year. The Library Company will be closed December 23, 2019 - January 1, 2020 for the holiday season, and will reopen on January 2.

Charles Le Pois. Selectiorum observationum et consiliorum de praetervisis hactenus morbis affectibusque praeter naturam, ab aqua… Lugduni Batavorum: E typographeo Francisci Hackii, 1650.

This stylish fella certainly has something to sing about - it’s #feathursday! And wherever he’s perched looks much warmer than it is here.

C.W. Webber. Wild Scenes and Song-Birds. New York: George P. Putnam & Co., 1854.

This weeks #LibraryWonderland comes from Cloud Crystals, an album dedicated to snow-flakes by Mrs. Frances E. Chickering, with illustrations by J.F. RIchardson. Part scientific explanation and part literary expression, this volume sings the praises of all the unique stellated forms of snow.

Mrs. Frances E. Chickering. Cloud Crystals. New York: Appleton and Companyy, 1883.

This young girl is giving us serious winter style inspiration! 

John Frank Keith, Little girl in knitted winter coat and hat standing on steps, Philadelphia, ca. 1931. Gelatin silver on postcard mount. 

Image depicts a little girl wearing a dark knitted or crocheted coat with full sleeves and matching hat standing on marble steps in Philadelphia. Her outfit is trimmed with several rows of fluffy white angora yarn. 

Keith was a Philadelphia photographer who specialized in portraiture, mainly of working-class Philadelphians in South Philadelphia and Kensington from the 1910s to the 1940s.