Month: August 2018
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A Woodblock on Pilgrimage: From Flanders to Philadelphia
[Ed. note: we are very grateful to Dr. Patricia Stoop, visiting Brueghel Chair at the University of Pennsylvania / Universiteit Antwerpen for contributing this post.] At the beginning of this year, the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts of the University of Pennsylvania purchased a unique and fascinating woodblock (c. 12.5 ×…
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Ma, Mama, Mother, Mumsie, Mrs. Biddle, and Cousin Maria
Despite the prominence of the Biddle men in Philadelphia history, the Biddle family papers are dominated by the Biddle women, and in particular, Biddle mothers. In typical mother fashion, these mamas kept track of their families, had enough clout that their teenage sons (and grown-up sons) wrote daily letters, and demanded ever more news! What…
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Alias Mr. Atlantis, Knight Grand Star of the Noble Order of Count Dracula, the Terrible-Tempered Mr. Bang
This extremely Gothic bookplate appears on the front pastedown of Armine von Tempski’s 1929 novel Fire in the Caroline F. Schimmel Collection of Women in the American Wilderness. It was designed in 1933 by the American medical illustrator, Atlantean scholar, and First Fandom member Henry M. Eichner (1909-1971), whose career is as fascinating as his…
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Sex (Mis)education: the Jay A. Gertzman research collection on censorship
After the Comstock Act (named after famed anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock) was passed in 1873, it became illegal to send any material deemed “obscene” through the U.S. Postal Service. Comstock, from his position as a special agent for the U.S.P.S., became a one-man arbiter of whether a given piece of material was or was not…