Tag: scrapbooks
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The “Theatricals in Philadelphia” Scrapbooks: Or, How Yesterday’s Old Stuff Became the Treasure Trove of Today
Written by Siel Agugliaro If you work in an archival repository, you know that no matter how uninteresting or randomly assembled a collection may appear, it probably meant a lot to whoever decided to put it together. Archivists are also used to dealing with the hyperbolic language of the auctioneers from whom collections are sometimes…
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Heroines Behind the Scenes of War
Written by Alexis Morris World War II provides much of the lore and mystique which fuels the modern American culture. From movies, books, and television documentaries, it is hard to escape the particular monopoly this time period has on popular media. When it comes to women of World War II, media tends to focus on…
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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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Ghosts on the Shelf: Or, the Long-Awaited Return of Charles Durang’s “History of The Philadelphia Stage Between the Years 1749 and 1855” (But, Wait, Wasn’t that Thompson Westcott’s?)
Written by Siel Agugliaro Historians of American drama know it well: there is hardly a more precious source on 19th-century Philadelphia theater than Charles Durang’s work dedicated to the history of the city stage in the years between 1749 and 1855. A painstakingly detailed account of the theatrical activities that took place in Philadelphia over…
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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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