Fondly, Pennsylvania
Fondly, Pennsylvania
Fondly, Pennsylvania is HSP's main blog. Here you will find posts on our latest projects and newest discoveries, as well articles on interesting bits of local history reflected in our collection. Whether you are doing research or just curious to know more about the behind-the-scenes work that goes on at HSP, please read, explore, and join the conversation!
Recently, the BBC reported that an 800-year old coffin at the Prittlewell Priory Museum in England was damaged when parents placed their small child into the coffin for a photograph. Although repairable, the damage to the coffin is serious, and highlights the importance in paying attention to obeying barriers and other protective measures.
(The following entry was written by Marie Jordan and Patrick Glennon.)
HSP’s collections include documents of many types. Personal letters in particular provide insight into the private lives of their authors and recipients.
For this entry, I want to look at five letters in HSP’s collection. Written between 1908 and 1912, these letters record the friendship and intellectual collaboration between Philadelphia’s Joseph Fels and the Russian Prince and political writer Peter Kropotkin.
This is the first in an occasional series that will examine specific collections drawn from HSP’s extensive archives. This week, I’m exploring the Thelma McDaniel collection. (Link goes to finding aid.)
When America entered WWI on April 6, 2017, a number of government agencies were created to oversee various aspects of the war effort. Some of these focused on the homefront. Agricultural production was a chief concern, essential for sustaining the country during wartime.
And so the Women’s Land Army was created.
Throughout the 19th and into the early 20th century, the Spiritualist movement saw a leap in popularity in the United States, including a large number of followers in Philadelphia. Spiritualism is the belief that spirits of the dead have the ability to communicate with the living, and that they willingly do so. During this period, Spiritualists regularly held séances, camp meetings, and other gatherings to reach out to the dead. They were primarily interested in what their spirit contacts could reveal about ethical issues, the afterlife, and the existence of God.
This August marks the 150th anniversary of the first public gay rights protest. It consisted of a single man taking the stage at a theater in Munich, Germany. Despite the small size of the protest, it would influence a movement, encouraging the use of science as a tool to explain the validity of queer identities.
In 1994, the UN declared that International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples would be observed on August 9th every year. Bearing that declaration in mind, I decided to examine HSP’s collection and see what, if any, primary documentation of the voices of indigenous peoples to the area survives.
The area around Philadelphia was home to the Lenni Lenape, also called the Lenape or Delaware, when Europeans arrived. As was the case with other settlements, the indigenous peoples were forced into displacement relatively soon after the arrival of white settlers.
Not unlike today, after an election, there is a need to try to reunite the country. After taking the oath of office on March 4, 1817, President James Monroe was hungry to repair the political disorder between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists. Though the War of 1812 had ended two years before Monroe’s inauguration, the Capitol in Washington D.C.
“Philadelphia has the finest orchestra I have ever heard at any time or any place in my whole life. I don’t know that I would be exaggerating if I said that it is the finest orchestra the world has ever heard.”
-Sergei Rachmaninoff
The following article was written by HSP volunteer Randi Kamine and is being posted on her behalf.
"My Dearest X.Y.Z. I want to tell you everything that has occurred lately and I want you to ask me questions which I am bound to answer.” So begins the first entry in the diary written by Selina Richards Schroeder in early 1889."
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