Tag: Unique at Penn
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Japan Beautiful
The Panama- Pacific International Exposition was held in San Francisco, California from February 20-December 4, 1915. Like other world’s fair before it, the expo featured a variety of industries, entertainment, and exhibits. In addition to the displays of architecture, guests could view exhibits on transportation, food products, agriculture, liberal arts, education, varied Industries. Just beyond…
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Time for a family meeting!
It is not unusual or uncommon for families to gather together for a family meeting. What is unusual, it to document it as though it were a formal council gathering of familial representatives. In processing the Lorenz and Zehring family papers, I came across something I had not seen before, minutes of family meetings, as…
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Alexanders & Anderson
On February 8th, the PBS series American Masters aired a brand-new two-hour documentary on Marian Anderson called “Marian Anderson: The Whole World in Her Hands.” The production staff reviewed over 600 photographs, 400 documents and 18 audio recordings from Penn Libraries Marian Anderson Collection. The result is a visually and aurally rich sotribute to one…
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A Native American Provenance Enigma
A Philadelphia-area collector recently contacted curators in the Kislak Center about acquiring an unusual work in his collection, namely a copy of 1842 edition of the Book of Common Prayer in Mohawk and English, including, according to the Preface, “the Collects and some of the offices of the Church which were never before printed in…
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Scent of the Orange
We usually only see the labels for fragrances once they have been attached to the bottles, which makes this recent acquisition so wonderful. It is an engraved sheet with two apothecary labels for eau de cologne, one for a larger bottle, the other for a smaller bottle. They were printed from a single plate and…
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Hair It Is
As COVID-19 shuttered businesses, including hair salons and barbershops, and stay-at-home orders had so many of us working remotely, spending hours on Zoom meetings, our hair became a major focus of attention. Of course, this was really nothing new, as we have long had a complicated relationship with hair, which is rarely left in its…