Author: adminuatpa
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“Motion in the Brain & Action in the Heart”: Treating Lovesickness from the Lectures of Dr. Benjamin Rush
Written by Rive Cadwallader The Benjamin Rush lecture notes (Ms. Coll. 225) is a collection of notebooks kept by medical students at the University of Pennsylvania between roughly 1783 and 1810. These documents present readers with that era’s most advanced understandings of medical theory, and reflect the highest quality of medical education available in late…
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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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A Scrapbook, Two Families, Two Murdered Presidents, and Other Animals: A Riddle From the Charlotte Cushman Club Records
Written by Siel Agugliaro In 1870, children’s writer and translator Henry William Dulcken – best known in England for his translations of Hans Christian Andersen’s stories – published in London and New York an educational book titled Animal Life all the World Over: With Remarks On the Trees and Plants of Various Regions. As the…
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“In Labor I Find Peace”: The Works and Notes of a Mysterious Italian-American Composer Find A New Home at Penn
Written by Siel Agugliaro If you are a music historian and have never heard of F. Antonio Di Cecco (1888-1954), don’t worry: neither had the author of this post until a few months ago. After all, why should you know him? Contemporary newspapers reveal very little about his work as a composer and conductor, and…
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Edward Gorey papers
Written by Jack Dwiggins Yet another side-product of the Gotham Book Mart gift, the Gotham Book Mart collection of Edward Gorey material documents the later (and posthumous) career of the celebrated author, artist, and illustrator. These papers actually contain very little written by Edward Gorey himself, but I think the collection is more interesting because…
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Miniature Worlds Acting Big: Toy Theaters at the Kislak Center
“Ocean—strip of water in groove 2; strip of shore, groove 4; wreck, groove 1, right of stage; raft, groove 3, right; Crusoe A, groove 5, left. [Curtain rises]”. When it is performed on a toy theater, the reconstruction of Robinson Crusoe’s shipwreck requires a certain number of technical details. A good staging is about the…
Unique at Penn 