We hope it’s not too late to throw our hat in the ring for the #CreepiestObject challenge!
  
The Library Company received this mummy’s hand in 1767 as a gift from the famed American painter, Benjamin West. It is now held in our Art & Artifacts collection.

The top of the box has an inscription that reads, “Woman’s Hand taken from an Egyptian Mummy: presented to the Library Company of Philadelphia by Mr. Benjamin West formerly of this City, but now of London - Historical Painter - November 1767.”
   

The Library Company was the largest medical library in colonial America, thanks in part to the collections of James Logan and his brother Dr. William Logan, but also a wealth of other medical treatises and plague-related material - including a copy of Defoe’s 1722 Journal of the Plague Year.
In the second of a multi-part series of pandemic reading, Librarian Jim Green muses on some of the plague literature on our shelves, including Benjamin Rush’s medical library.  Check it out on the blog! 

A little block printed sunshine on a cloudy Thursday. It is Thursday, right?

Hohman, Johann Georg. Der kleine Catholische Catechismus. Reading: Carl A. Bruckman, 1819.

In honor of Earth Day and National Park Week, we’re sharing this tiny (6 cm!) souvenir book by William S. Vaux, Jr. detailing a Vaux family trip to the Yellowstone National Park in August 1885. William S. Vaux, Jr. was one of the trio of siblings of Philadelphia photographers, mountaineers, and scientists that also included Mary M. Vaux (1860-1940) and George Vaux, Jr. (1863-1927). An architect by trade, Vaux and his siblings extensively explored, studied, and photographically documented the West beginning with their trip to Yellowstone National Park in 1885. The frontispiece photo shows a woman and young man, probably Mary Vaux and one of her brothers, standing near a geyser. 

Vaux, William S. Two weeks in the Yellowstone. Philadelphia: Vaux Print, 1887.

Here’s another quarantine hobby suggestion for your consideration: learning to play the piano!

The celebrated Sohmer Pianos are at present the most popular and preferred by the leading artists (New York : Beatty & Co. lith. 193 & 194 West St), ca. 1885. Chromolithograph.

Image depicts eight labeled bust portraits of famous opera singers encircling a laurel wreath that surrounds a Sohmer piano. Includes Adelina Patti, Christine Nilsson, Antonio F. Galassi, Clara Louise Kellogg, Albert Niemann, Emma Cecilia Thursby, Italo Campanini, and Etelka Gerster.

Today, we show appreciation for the brave medical professionals who are working on the front lines of this pandemic. Over a century ago, in the face of an unprecedented global crisis, the nation also looked to nurses and doctors for support as seen in this World War I poster in our Graphic Arts collection. 

Milton Herbert Bancroft, Wanted 25000 Student Nurses, 1917. Poster print.  

Another day, another blog post! Today, we have another blast from the past from Curator of Art and Artifacts and Visual Materials Cataloger Linda August which explores the evolution of the Library Company’s catalog system. Read more about it here: https://librarycompany.org/2020/04/08/searching-through-the-catalog/

Today we’re highlighting a blog post by Curator of Graphic Arts Erika Piola which reflects on some of the acquisitions she made at paper fairs in recent years, including this trade card which depicts a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Read more about it here: https://librarycompany.org/2020/04/08/fairs-past/

“Patience, young Grasshopper.” Can’t help but wonder what stories this Grasshopper has to share.

Acheta Domestica. Episodes of Insect Life. New York: J. S. Redfield, Clinton-Hall, 1851.

Time to settle into that favorite chair (if a certain someone hasn’t already taken it!)

Marriott Canby Morris, [Dog Jet on chair, probably Sea Girt, NJ], ca. 1880-ca. 1900. Glass negative.

Image depicts Jet, a small black dog wearing a collar with a bell, sitting on a wooden chair on a porch. A barrel stands behind the chair with a window the the left.