Month: June 2016
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Who IS Francis Howard Williams?
Much of the Francis Howard Williams papers consists of correspondence and manuscripts from a literary critic and writer in the late nineteenth century. There is extensive correspondence ranging from 1880 to 1909 between Williams and the “who’s who” of the nineteenth century literary world. These letters contain dialogue concerning poems and texts that Williams both…
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“Dear No. One Maven” : The wild constructions of Stephen Berg’s letters to Seth Fagen
Written by Sarah Yerger, archival processor “O Maddest of Poodles,” “O mighty brain,” “Master of Mania,” and “Dr. Poo” – only a few examples of the various terms of endearment used by poet, translator, and professor Stephen Berg during his ongoing correspondence with fellow academic Seth Fagen. During the late 1980s into the early 1990s,…
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The Belle Époque Brought to Life
The Belle Époque musical concert and opera programs and periodicals collection contains memorabilia from Belle Époque concerts that provide a glimpse into several of the most notable concert locations in Francophone Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Belle Époque was named in retrospect as it was considered to be the “golden…
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Japanese Naval Cruise Books and the Renshū Kantai
Some of the Penn Libraries’ unique Japanese holdings, like our set of Okinawan Bibles or our collection of early 20th century pulp historical fiction, are legacy items donated decades ago and just recently rediscovered. Others, like the corporate history resource Mieki (a magazine dedicated to a brand of industrial soy sauce additive), have been purchased…
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Scoundrels and Socialites: the Evolution of American Dentistry from 1780 to 1920
Written by Rive Cadwallader, archival processor The William H. Trueman collection of dental advertisements (Ms. Codex 1760) is the sort of historical medical text that makes me very pleased to be living in the twenty-first century. This album, probably arranged around 1900, features a few dozen reprographics of dental advertisements published in American newspapers like…
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A passage from a lost play
[Ed. note: Today’s post is by Andrew S. Keener, a Ph.D. Candidate in the English Department at Northwestern University who recently spent time researching in our collections] “Doo Comedies like you wel?” asks a speaker on the first page of John Florio’s bilingual conversation guide First Fruits (1578). Such a question is hardly out of…