#LCPprints

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Clearly we've got the Olympics on our mind. Is the ladder an Olympic sport? Can it be?

Prof. Hillebrand & Lewis' Gymnasium. [Philadelphia, ca. 1863]. Lithograph; 31 x 41 cm

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This tiny color wood engraving is from a collection of letter seals, all about the size of a postage stamp.

#ForgetMeNotDay

[Illustrated letter seals containing admonitions]. [United States, ca. 1860]

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During WWI the U. S. Food Administration encouraged Americans to change their eating habits in order to save food for our military and allies in Europe.

Posters like this one advocated food conservation, with slogans like “Meatless Mondays” and “Wheatless Wednesdays.”

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These early 19th-century silhouettes are just some of the hundreds that were created at the Peale Museum, and probably cut by Black silhouettist Moses Williams between 1803-1810. They were acquired through the 1869 Rush bequest, but not formally accessioned into the collection until 1991. On view in our exhibition Imperfect History

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It's National Library Workers Day and we're honoring the important role that library staff plays in running our beloved institution!

Photograph taken at the Ridgway branch of the Library Company, from LCP's archives.

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The Graphic Arts Collection is home to a large collection of posters from World War I, the provenance of which is largely unknown since most of them are backed with linen. However, this poster provides curators with clues on the collection's origins.

A manuscript note on the back of the poster, which is not backed by linen, indicates that it was brought by Corinne Keen Freeman in 1919 for display at LCP's Juniper Street building.

Freeman was the chairperson of the South Philadelphia Women's Auxiliary Liberty Loan Committee, which worked to get community members signed up for loan subscriptions that helped the U.S. pay for the war effort.

It wasn't until 1980, however, that our more than 300 WWI posters were formally added into the collection.

Vic Forsythe, And They Thought We Couldn't Fight, ca. 1919. Poster print.

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Parlor Gallery opened in the 1880s and was operated by Lewis Horning. The photography studio was located in the on South 9th Street in Philadelphia and situated in the 7th Ward, which was the subject of a seminal study by sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois titled, "The Philadelphia Negro." 

Many of members of Philadelphia's Black middle and upper middle class visited Parlor Gallery to commission portraits that became family keepsakes. The portraits also served to counter the proliferation of racist caricatures in popular U.S. visual culture during the late nineteenth century. 

1st image: Parlor Gallery, Unidentified young African American woman, ca. 1891. Gelatin silver on cabinet card. 

2nd image: Parlor Gallery, Taylor Aldridge, 1883. In Portrait album of well known 19th-century African American men of Philadelphia. 

3rd image: Parlor Gallery, Unidentified young African American woman, ca. 1891. Gelatin silver on cabinet card. 

4th image: Parlor Gallery, Unidentified African American man with a dog, ca. 1880. Albumen on cabinet card.

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In honor of Juneteenth.

On June 19, 1865, federal orders were read in Galveston, Texas announcing the emancipation of all remaining enslaved persons in the confederacy. Though formally freed two years earlier by the emancipation proclamation of 1863, word didn't reach Texas due in part to its remote location, and by the lack of Union troops present to enforce the proclamation. This image by artist Thomas Nast was originally published in "Harper's Weekly" on January 24, 1863 and depicts a series of scenes contrasting African American life before and after emancipation.

Nast, Thomas. Emancipation: the past and the future. Philadelphia: J. W. Umpehent, 1865.

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The designs of popular medicine trade cards for often-dubiously manufactured products were meant to catch the eye with a glance as well as to be looked at repeatedly.

For Dr. Kilmer's Female Remedy, images of the private and public domains and relationships of women predominate. The visual metaphors show the life to be had by a middle-class Kilmer consumer transformed from the confinement of immobility on a veranda to one of freedom for recreation, travel, and tranquility.

This female empowerment imagery may also have been read as the freedom from motherhood. Advertised as a cure for "suspicious growths," the rhetoric suggests its possible use as an abortifacient as well.

Dr. Kilmer’s Female Remedy (New York?, ca. 1875).

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If you're heading to the Shore this weekend, be sure to stop and say Happy Birthday to Lucy!

Lucy the Elephant was constructed by James V. Lafferty in 1881. She will be 140 years old on July 20, making her the oldest surviving roadside attraction in America.

This is her in 1884, as photographed by Marriott C. Morris.

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July is National Picnic Month, a fact which Marriot Morris clearly knew. This image was taken by Morris on July 7, 1888 at 2:30 pm.

Special shoutout to whoever balanced the egg on the wine bottle!

Morris, Marriott. Party at dinner in woods at Highlands, [NJ]. July 7, 1888.

#otd #nationalpicnicmonth #LCPprints #photography #glassnegatives #picnic #19thcenturyfashion #benslibrary

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The cicadas are coming, so let's show some appreciation for their quieter and more aesthetically pleasing peers!

Gies & Co., Candy at Hayward's, ca. 1885. Lithograph tinted with two stones.

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You know what they say, winter is coming. And for bears, that means it's time to eat a ton of food before hibernating until Spring. Happy #FatBearWeek!

This hand-colored lithograph is from an 1831 volume of "The Cabinet of Natural History and American Rural Sports," and was printed by J. F. & C. A. Watson.

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This early salted paper print was commissioned by Charles Poulson as part of a series of 120 cityscape views by Philadelphia painter and photographer Frederick De Bourg Richards (1822-1903) to document the changing architecture of the city.

Richards' painter's eye for composition is visible in this perspective view of Carpenters’ Hall, the historical building that housed the Library Company 1773-1790. Richards’ photograph encapsulates the tacit acknowledgement that a city needs to preserve its history but also needs to evolve to remain vital.

Frederick De Bourg Richards, Carpenters' Court and Hall (in perspective), Chestnut St. bet. Third & Fourth St. May 1859.

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To celebrate #WorldPhotographyDay we are sharing this albumen print taken of the North side of the 500 block of Market Street in Philadelphia.

The photographer is unidentified, but a note on the back states that it was taken in May of 1868

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Does anyone else like get dressed in your finest clothes to mow the lawn?

The Philadelphia Lawn Mower Co., ca. 1905. Photolithograph.