Irish Writers

We never need an excuse to talk about Irish authors--James Joyce and Bram Stoker are year-round staples of the Rosenbach diet-- but with St. Patrick's Day approaching I thought I'd highlight a few other famous Irishmen in our collection. Many thanks to our librarian Elizabeth Fuller for letting me crib from the script from her Irish Writers hands-on-tour.

Jonathan Swift

Satirist Swift is best known for Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726 and seen below in a first edition. This is the book that gave us the words lilliputian and yahoos, among other cultural tropes. Our collection also includes a few other Swiftian works, including Tale of A Tub, and Battle of the Books.

[Jonathan Swift], Travels into several remote nations of the world...by Lemuel Gulliver. EL2 .S977tr

Oliver Goldsmith

This 18th-century author was a real literary jack of all trades: executing translations, writing children's books, general articles, poetry, plays and novels. He's best known for his play She Stoops to Conquer, his novel The Vicar of Wakefield, and his poem The Deserted Village (shown below). His works were very popular in the 19th century and we even have the copper printing plates for an edition of his poems printed in 1819

Printing plate for The Poems of Oliver Goldsmith,1819,.2005.0250.001.001

Oscar Wilde

Wilde is a man who needs no introduction and as he himself said, "biography lends to death a new terror." However I can't resist one of my favorite fun facts--Florence Balcombe courted Oscar Wilde, but eventually chose to marry another Irishman--Bram Stoker! Anyway, on the theme of love (and Rosenbach), here is a manuscript sonnet by Wilde on the sale of Keats's love letters.

Oscar Wilde. Sonnet : On the sale by auction of Keats' love letters. 1 March 1885. EL3 f.W672 MS1

William Butler Yeats

We don't have much from this towering figure of 20th-century literature , but we do have two manuscripts, including this one entitled "The Stolen Child." By the way, Yeats was the first Irish author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1923)--this has sometimes been a useful bit of trivia for the Quizzo at Bloomsday 101.

W. B. Yeats, The Stolen Child. EMs 1280/4

So enjoy St. Patrick's Day and curl up with your favorite Irish writer. If you'd like something a bit more contemporary, Frank Delaney, the guest of honor at this year's Rosenbacchanal is coming out with a new short story on St Patrick's Day. His earlier short story The Druid is being offered for free right now on Amazon and the new one will post tomorrow. Whatever you pick, have a wonderful weekend!


Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

Great Gratz

This past weekend we celebrated the Gratz family in style with a recognition of Joseph Gratz by the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, of which he was a member, and a celebration of Rebecca Gratz's 241st birthday (but who's counting). For those of you who were unable to attend the festive event, I thought I'd share a few pictures.

Here is our curator and director of collections Judy Guston with the First Troop members and our portraits of Rebecca and Joseph Gratz. It was through Judy's hard work and dedication that we were able to acquire these lovely Gratz portraits in 2010 as well as the recent donation of Maria Gratz's portrait which was profiled last week in the Inquirer.


Here we have Susan Sklaroff, author of the blog Rebecca Gratz & 19th-Century America and Rosenbach docent extraordinaire! This picture also lets you see the true height of the soldiers' plumes. Apparently they were taller than the chandelier in the parlor, so the soldiers had to carefully keep to the perimeter of the room to avoid knocking into it.


This image gives you a nice view of the reverse of the First Troop's early-19th-century uniforms.


And finally, here is Rebecca's birthday cake.

For anyone who would like to delve further into the Gratzes and their contemporaries, Judy will be giving a hands-on tour this Sunday at 3 PM "From Gratz to Rosenbach: A Collection of Early America Judaica;" this tour will also be offered on Friday March 23 at 3 PM.



Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

Rosenbach Company Records

One of the many jobs our collection staff handles is answering research questions from folks outside the institution. Sometimes the questions can be downright unusual--our librarian remembers fielding a call from someone asking if we had newly discovered photos of Area 51 (apparently a news site mixed up a couple of links). But oddities aside, one of the most common questions we get is from people trying to track down information about objects that were purchased or sold through the Rosenbach Company. Here's a quick behind-the-scenes peek at some of the kinds of records we have from the Rosenbach Company that we can use to answer these questions.

Stock Cards

Stock cards (perhaps unsurprisingly) describe the books and manuscripts the Company had in its stock. Each represents a particular book or manuscript and the cards are organized by author or by subject. Individual cards vary, but they can include a description (often cut and paste from a Rosenbach Company sales catalog, as seen here) , stock numbers, provenance and/or sale information, and information about price. The price information is encoded using the ten letter word HOVERZACKS to represent the 10 numerals. The fine and decorative arts side of the business doesn't have stock cards, only stock books, which are obviously trickier to use because they aren't sortable in the way cards are. You can see the decorative arts stock book in the Inquiring Minds exhibition.

Sales Books

The Rosenbach Company sales books list all the purchases that customers made from the store: art and antiques, books and manuscripts, as well as sales from the frame shop and services the Company provided. The books run chronologically; there are 29 books for the fifty years. Frame numbers and delivery numbers turn up here, as well as information about the staff members who made the sale.

Accounts Receivable

Any person who made a purchase at the Rosenbach Company on credit had an accounts receivable card which listed dates and amounts of debits (purchases) and credits (payments). This card is one of many from Mrs. George D. Widener which are currently on display in Titanic: The Rise of Rosenbach.

Payment Vouchers

On the flip side from account receivable are payment vouchers, which record payments the Rosenbach Company made to its suppliers. These vouchers sometimes include invoices or receipts from book dealers, auction house, or other creditors.

There are many other types of materials that tell us about the workings of the Rosenbach Company, from sales catalogs to collation files to voucher registers, but hopefully this at least gives a glimpse into the way we tackle this research.



Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

President's Day Post

Happy belated President's Day! Today, February 22, marks Washington's actual birthday so I thought we'd celebrate with a peek at Washington's earliest surviving letter.(If you want to get precise, when he was born Washington would have thought of his birthday as February 11, since England and her colonies still used the Julian calendar, but it works out to February 22 in the Gregorian calendar, to which Britain switched in 1752).

In any event, this earliest surviving letter was written when George was only 17. It is written to his older half-brother Lawrence. In the first sentence George makes mention of Lawrence's cough; Lawrence would die of tuberculosis in 1752 at the age of 34.

George Washington, autograph letter signed to Lawrence Washington. Ferry Farm, Va., 5 May 1749. AMs 1058/23

May 5th, 1749
Dear Brother,

I hope your Cough is much mended since I saw you last, if so likewise hope you have given over the thoughts of leaving Virginia.

As there is not an absolute occasion of my coming down, hope you'll get the Deeds acknowledged without Me; my Horse is in very poor order to undertake such a journey, and is in no likelihood of mending for want of Corn sufficient to support him; tho' if there be any certainty in the Assembly's not rising untill the latter end of may, will if I can be down by that; As my Mothers term of Years is out at that Place at Bridge Creek, she designs to Settle a Quarter on that Peice at Deep Run, but seems backward of doing it, untill the right is made good, for fear of accidents.

It's Reported here that Mr. Spotswood intends to put down the Ferry that is kept at the Wharf where he now Lives, and that Major Frans: Taliaferro intends to petition the assembly for an act to have it kept from his House over against my Mothers Quarter, and right through the very Heart and best of the Land; whereas he can have no other view it but for the Conveniency of a small Mill he has on the Water side, that will not Grind above three Months in twelve, and the great Inconveniency and prejudice it will be to us, hope it will not be granted; besides, I do not see where he can Possibly have a Landing Place on his side that will ever be sufficient for a Lawful Landing (by reason of the steepness of the Banks;) I think we suffer enough with the Free Ferry, without without being troubled with such an unjust and iniquitous Petition as that, but hope as its only a flying report he will consider better of it and drop his pretentions. I should be glad (if its not too much trouble) to hear from you in the meanwhile remain with my Love to my Sister Dear sir
Your affectionate Brother
George Washington

For more Washington documents, as well as materials by the other Presidents' Day president, check out the Rosenbach's Manuscripts Online site, which features high resolution, searchable documents for your presidential perusal pleasure.



Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

Titanic Out Takes

The collections department has been busy this week with our new exhibit, Titanic: The Rise of Rosenbach, which opened yesterday. One of the challenges in any exhibition is that there are all sorts of fascinating tidbits that just don't fit into the story arc and therefore have to (sadly) get left off of the labels. Here are some of my favorite bits from the cutting room floor.

Titanic/Lusitania: Undoubtedly the two most famous ship sinkings of the 20th century were the Titanic, which struck an iceberg in 1912, and the Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. Strangely enough, as we looked through the Rosenbach material related to the Titanic disaster, we kept finding references to the Lusitania. Philip Rosenbach traveled to England on the Lusitania, London book dealer Bernard Quaritch sent Harry Widener's posthumous purchases home to America on the Lusitania, fine press publisher Elbert Hubbard wrote a book about the Titanic and then himself went down with the Lusitania when it sank (this did make it into a label). Of course in 1912 there was nothing wrong with the Lusitania and there were only so many ships plying the Atlantic crossing, but we couldn't help noticing the odd coincidence.

Elbert Hubbard, The Titanic. East Aurora, N. Y.: The Roycroft Shops, 1923. FP.R889 923

St Paul's: The exhibition focuses on Harry Widener's book collecting and his mother's attempt to honor him with a memorial library at Harvard. However, the library wasn't the only memorial Mrs. Widener created for her family. When I was just beginning the research for this exhibit I met a woman who was a parishioner at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park. She told me about how Mrs. Widener renovated the church in honor of her husband George and her son, Harry, including donating Tiffany memorial windows. According to Leslie Morris's article, "Harry Elkins Widener and A.S.W. Rosenbach: Of Books and Friendship," Dr. Rosenbach, who was quite close with Mrs. Widener in the period after the tragedy, also served as a sounding board for this project, even advising on the selection of altar cloths.

Widener legends: That Harry Widener willed his books to Harvard and that his mother donated a $2 million building to go with them are facts. It is also a fact that his mother stipulated that there could be no significant alterations to the exterior of the building, which has caused Harvard to get creative about expansion and renovations, including in one case running a connecting corridor between Widener and Houghton Libraries through a window. However interesting these facts are, campus legends abound about other supposed Widener rules. Supposedly Harvard instituted mandatory swim tests at the stipulation of Mrs. Widener, who felt that swimming could have saved her son. This is complete nonsense; I have no idea if Harry could swim or not, but it would have been irrelevant to his death, since there was nowhere to swim to. In fact, Harvard's swim test did not come into force until the 1920s. Another story claims that ice cream is always available in the dining halls because of a Widener requirement. I have no idea how that one got started, but there's no truth there either. A Snopes article on Widener urban legends points out that similar legends exist at other colleges and that this type of legend is used to explain all kinds of collegiate quirks that have no obvious explanation.

That's it for this round of the outtake reel. Apropos of last week's post, I would like to note that I have found several on-line Dickens name generators, including The Dickens Character Generator and the Fictional Character Name Generator. Explore at your own risk.

Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

"I Am Born"--200 Years Ago

The birthdays are coming fast and furious. Last week it was James Joyce; this week we celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, who was born February 7, 1812. While many find Joyce daunting, almost everyone has read some Dickens--even if it was just A Tale of Two Cities in high school English class. What is your favorite Dickens tale?

You can find out about Dickens birthday events around the world at the Dickens 200 Website; the Dickens Fellowship and the Dickensblog are also doing a good job linking out to events, press coverage, and other interesting material. Here at the Rosenbach we are celebrating with a new Dickens Hands-on Tour. You can check it out tomorrow, February 8, at 3 PM to get your hands on Dickens's earliest surviving literary manuscript, signed copies of his books, a broadside for one of his amateur theatricals, as well as letters and other neat stuff. We'll be repeating the tour on Friday the 24th, in case you can't make it over tomorrow.

Dickens will also feature in this year's Romance at the Rosenbach tour; among the items we're putting out for that tour is the perennial favorite, a lock of Dickens's hair. This was saved by his sister-in-law Georgina Hogarth. For the full story of Dickens, his wife, his actress, and his sister-in-law you'll have to come on the tour.

Charles Dickens, hair. Probably June 1870. Rosenbach Museum & Library. 2005.0004

Personally, one of my favorite parts of Dickens's writing is the characters. In a Daily Mirror poll, Ebenezer Scrooge won top honors as "the most popular Dickens character", but I'm a big fan of the characters with amusing names. Here are some of my favorites: Mr. Wopsle, Luke Honeythunder, Sophia Wackles, Dick Swiveller, Alfred Jingle, Wackford Squeers, Inspector Bucket, Mr. Sloppy, and Caddy Jellyby.

Give yourself a pat on the back for any of these you recognized, and an extra pat if you know which book s/he came from. I think there could be a great market in a Dickensian name-creation app.

So happy birthday Mr Dickens and may we all keep the day well!


Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog

Happy Birthday to James Joyce and Ulysses

About a month ago I posted about James Joyce's death date (Jan. 13, 1941) and its effect on copyright. Today we can celebrate his birth date: February 2, 1882. I think he's doing quite well for a man of 130! At his birth, Joyce's name was famously misrecorded as James Augusta Joyce, rather than James Augustine Joyce, an amusing slip that he incorporated into Ulysses, which makes mention of "the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom." Tom Stoppard also took advantage of the naming goof in his play Travesties, in which the Joyce character parallels Aunt Augusta from Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. (Quick note to local Stoppard and/or Joyce fans-- Plays and Players will be producing Travesties in June)

Joyce's birthday is, not coincidentally, also a significant day for two of his best known works. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man began to be serialized in The Egoist on February 2, 1914, and Ulysses was first published in its entirety on Joyce's 40th birthday, which also had the advantage of being a catchy date: 2-2-22. For more about Joyce's feelings about his name and his birthday (and about an awesome cake which his daughter-in-law got for him) check out this page from the James Joyce Centre.

In honor of Joyce's and Ulysses's birthdays, I thought I'd highlight a new acquisition, which relates to our right to enjoy that book here in the United States. Last year we acquired a signed copy of the Woolsey decision in the 1933 case, United States vs. One Book Called Ulysses, which which overturned the 1921 obscenity ban on publishing or importing Ulysses.

John Woolsey. United States of America. Libellant v One Book Called "Ulysses" Random House Inc, Claimant. 1933

Here are the first and last pages, which conclude with Judge Woolsey's famous statement that "[W]hilst in many places the effect of 'Ulysses' on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac" and his decision "'Ulysses' may, therefore, be admitted into the United States."




Kathy Haas is the Assistant Curator at the Rosenbach Museum & Library and the primary poster at the Rosen-blog