Tag Archives: Philadelphia History

Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis: Medieval Manuscripts in Philadelphia

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France. Missal Leaf. 1285

The Council on Library and Information Resources has awarded one of its Digitizing Hidden Collections grants to the Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries (PACSCL).  It will support digitization of virtually all the medieval manuscripts in PACSCL member collections and to place them in a common repository with previously digitized manuscripts as free cultural works. The project, “Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis: Toward A Comprehensive Online Library of Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts in PACSCL Libraries in Eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware,” includes manuscripts from Lehigh University; Free Library of Philadelphia; University of Pennsylvania Libraries; Bryn Mawr College; College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Haverford College; Library Company of Philadelphia; Rosenbach Museum and Library; Swarthmore College; Temple University; University of Delaware; Chemical Heritage Foundation; Franklin & Marshall College; Villanova University; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Detail. Pore Caitif, c. 1400

The proposal funded by CLIR describes the value of the project: “This project will provide online access to high-resolution images, with metadata, of 159,512 pages of medieval manuscripts from more than 400 codices plus leaves. These images will be released to the public domain for free use by scholars and the general public and, added to existing digitized resources, will make the overwhelming majority of the region’s medieval manuscripts–one of the largest concentrations in the United States–available worldwide, in their entirety and easily downloadable. By providing unfettered, unmediated consolidated access to such a comprehensive corpus of images and metadata, the project will shape a new understanding of libraries’ and archives’ role in sharing our historical and cultural heritage.”

Italy. Countess of Gunstalla letter authorizing payment, 1487

Temple students use the medieval manuscripts in Temple’s Special Collections Research Center to study the history of the book, illustration, printing techniques, and ancient texts, and to grow in primary source literacy and evaluation of resources.  The texts also serve as inspiration for the students’ own creative projects. While the manuscripts already support teaching in multiple disciplines, in their digital form they will expand opportunities for study and digital  scholarship.  Temple’s holdings are particularly strong in legal and business history, but also include a late 15th century French illuminated Book of Hours, other religious texts, and music.

–Margery Sly, Director, Special Collections

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pennsylvania Horticultural School for Women

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Ambler students, 1919-20

Located on a 187-acre field in the suburban Pennsylvania town of Ambler, The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women was founded in 1911 by Jane Bowne Haines as one of the first horticultural schools for women in the United States. The school provided a unique opportunity for women not only to become educated generally but to enter a field dominated by men. After more than forty-five years as an independent institution, the school merged with Temple University in 1958, and became the Temple University Ambler Campus. A deeper history of the school can be found on the Ambler Campus website.

Class of 1913 students pruning

The Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women Records contain of a wealth of photographs and materials documenting the history of the school. The photographs trace the students’ lives on campus through images of activities, dances, clubs, and their work in the fields, gardens, greenhouses, and classrooms. Through these photographs,  you see the changes in uniform, social dress codes, campus buildings, the variety of clubs, and even social expectations of women. One aspect that does not change is the labor requirement. From the very beginning, students were expected to climb trees, drive tractors, harvest the fields, and care for the animals, often in very impractical clothing.

PSHW’s 1932 Flower Show Exhibit

In addition to the photographs, which have all been digitized, the files contain administration records, printed materials, including several publications published by the school (Pen & Trowel and Wise Acres, along with a variety of alumni publications), ephemera relating to campus activities and festivals, correspondence, student records, and landscape design drawings. The archives also includes some photographs and other materials relating to the school’s participation in the Philadelphia Flower Show.

–Holly Wilson, Processing Archivist , Special Collections Research Center

Cartoonist Samuel R. Joyner

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Samuel Joyner, March 1998

Born in Philadelphia in 1924, Samuel R. Joyner is among a small number of early African-American cartoonists in the United States. His pioneering work influenced many generations of African American comics and commercial artists. While working as a paper boy for the Philadelphia Tribune, his artistic talents were first recognized by publisher E. Washington Rhodes. Following his service in the United States Navy during World War II, Joyner enrolled in the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (now known as the University of the Arts) to pursue a career as a commercial artist. He graduated in 1948.

After some difficulty finding employment, Joyner succeeded in selling his work to the Philadelphia Inquirer and Pittsburgh Courier. However, he soon realized that he was not fully valued for his creations at these papers because he was not allowed to attach his name to his art work or draw any non-white characters. In the 1950s, Joyner secured employment as an art director for the African American magazine Color. The magazine was originally based in Charleston West, Virginia, but moved its headquarters to Philadelphia in 1954. While working there Joyner gained national attention for his social and political commentary and satire and used it to encourage other African Americans to engage in activities and dialogues toward the defeat of discrimination and injustice.

Philadelphia Tribune, 2/1/94

In the 1960s, Joyner operated a print and graphics shop with his wife and four children. He continued to further his education by taking classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Temple University. From 1974 until his retirement in 1990, he taught art classes and graphic communications at Rhodes Middle School, and Bok Technical High School in Philadelphia. His work was published in over 40 different publications, and he received awards and recognitions from Temple University, The National Newspapers Publishers Association, and the Houston Sun Times, among other organizations.

Houston Sun, March 28, 1994.

Located in the Special Collections Research Center, the Samuel R. Joyner Artwork Collection includes photographs, original artwork and sketches, posters, news articles, publications, and ephemera, dating from 1947 to 2005. Joyner’s art work reveals how greatly influenced he was by the sociopolitical happening in society ,and how he used his talents to challenge racism, discrimination, exploitation, and American political culture in order to give a critical “visual voice” to a range of frustrations in the African American community.

–Brenda Galloway-Wright, Associate Archivist SCRC

 

 

The Photography of Philip Taylor

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Walt Whitman Bridge construction, 1955

Since the late 1940s, Philadelphian Philip Taylor has been taking photographs of his environment—Philadelphia as it was in the intervening decades. His painstakingly-processed silver gelatin prints illuminate Walt Whitman Bridge construction, the homeless, pre-gentrification Society Hill, the Camac baths, the Philadelphia neighborhoods of South Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia, and East Poplar, Atlantic City, and Philadelphia residents—both anonymous and famous—as well as his travels to Israel, the Canary Islands, and Cuba.

Philip Taylor attended local public schools in South Philadelphia. In 1943, during his junior year in high school, he dropped out to help support his family after his father died suddenly while working at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Taylor worked as a civilian in the Navy Department in Center City Philadelphia—in the mail room located next to the photography department. Drafted into the United States Army in 1944, Taylor served until 1946 at various stateside bases.

Homeless man on Philadelphia Skid Row, c. 1955

After the war, Taylor apprenticed as a union tradesman in the lithographic printing industry in Philadelphia. For the next twenty-five years, he worked the night shift as a master lithographic cameraman making half-tone negatives and color separations for the print medium at Mid-City Press, one of the largest commercial printers in Philadelphia.  Taylor also taught at the Philadelphia Lithographic Institute and holds two United States Government patents, one in the medical field and another in the lithographic field. He also invented two devices related to the lithographic printing industry.   Working full time, Taylor photographed his environment using a Rolleiflex 3.5F TLR camera and a Leica 35mm camera, and frequently stayed up until dawn developing negatives into photographic prints.

Old City Jerusalem, c. 1973

Temple University Libraries are grateful to Mr. Taylor for his donation of his life’s work. It will serve as a resource in the Special Collections Research Center for study and research. Please join us for a reception celebrating his work, February 26, 4:00  – 7:00, Paley Library Lecture Hall.   The exhibit is on view on the ground and first floors and mezzanine of Paley  through August 2016.

–Margery Sly, Director of Special Collections

We mourn the passing of Phil Taylor on October 29, 2021, and rejoice that his vision of Philadelphia and the world is preserved through his photography.

 

Weavers Way Co-op Archives

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June 1975 Weavers Way newsletter

Weavers Way Co-op was founded in 1973 in West Mount Airy, a neighborhood in Philadelphia. A cooperatively owned market, Weavers Way grew from a small deli and produce buying club to include two fully staffed and stocked grocery stores in West Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill; Across the Way, a natural pet supply and wellness store in Mount Airy; and Weavers Way Next Door, a natural health and wellness store in Chestnut Hill.

Weavers Way was founded during the “New Wave” cooperative movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when thousands of similarly minded cooperative retail and other ventures were founded across the United States. Offering an alternative to the conventional grocery store, Weavers Way took advantage of the power of collective purchasing to bring better and healthier foods into the community at affordable prices, and pushed for environmental, agricultural, and sociopolitical change through consumer activism and other programs.

From the beginning, the co-op encouraged its membership to be fully vested in the formation of its governance and in choosing which products to sell or not sell, with early newsletters concluding, “If you don’t decide, someone else will!” In its product philosophy statement, the Co-op outlined its commitment to selling products that were locally and/or cooperatively produced, did not originate from exploitative businesses, and to offer product alternatives, such as  bulk versus packaged or organic versus non-organic foods. Weavers Way also organized agricultural boycotts and recycling programs, and, as a leader in urban agriculture and the organic foods movement, it operated the Mort Brooks Memorial Farm at Awbury Arboretum and the Henry Got Crops community supported agriculture (CSA) program at W.B. Saul Agricultural High School.

An active and neighborhood-defining organization, Weavers Way Co-op’s records are a valuable addition to Special Collections Research Center’s holdings. In addition to documenting the history of the co-op and its surrounding community, the Weaver’s Way accession adds to an existing body of collections in the SCRC documenting life in northwest Philadelphia. Other collections include the Ann Spaeth Papers on Chestnut Hill, Lloyd Wells Papers on the Chestnut Hill Experience, the Chestnut Hill Local, the East Mount Airy Neighborhood Association Records, and the West Mouth Airy Neighborhood Association Records. As an added bonus, the Weavers Way Co-op Records also represent our most pleasantly perfumed collection. Having previously been stored above Across the Way, the material emits a delightful aroma of soaps and other wellness products. To learn more about the collection, view the Weavers Way Co-op finding aid.

--Courtney Smerz, Collection Management Archivist, SCRC

AIDS Library Records and LGBTQ Resources

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AIDS Library pins

The AIDS Library, located in Center City, Philadelphia, was founded in 1987. The mission of the library is to provide information and support to those infected by HIV/AIDS as well as to caregivers, other AIDS service organizations, medical practitioners, case managers, hospitals, family members, partners, and friends of those infected with and affected by the virus. The library is a part of Philadelphia FIGHT, a local health services organization working with people with HIV/AIDS, provides resources, internet access, educational programs, and one-on-one assistance to the public.

The AIDS Library Records in the Special Collections Research Center came to Temple in 2007. Byron Lee, a volunteer, processed the records. The collection contains administrative records as well as materials previously used but now withdrawn from the library’s collection–monographs, serials, pamphlets, collections of article and newspaper clippings, collections of community newsletters, and information files. The majority of the collection covers the early years of the AIDS epidemic and early activist and political activities from around 1986 to 1997. Additional transfers from the library are in process.

The Poetry of AIDS

The collection documents one of the earliest organizations founded to educate those affected by HIV/AIDS and their communities and families. Materials detail the evolution of the library as an organization, and the many pamphlets, reports, and other publications document resources available about the AIDS epidemic. Materials by and about other Philadelphia-area organizations, as well as newspaper clippings, photographs, pins, and other ephemera, provide a glimpse of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community in Philadelphia during 1980s and 1990s.

The Special Collections Research Center is fortunate to hold a number of other collections related to the history of the Philadelphia LGBTQ community. These include the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force Records which contain organization records, educational program records, and videotapes and audio cassettes documenting public service announcements, news reports, and events. The Scott Wilds Papers include articles, clippings, correspondence, magazines, newsletters, and reports from this Philadelphia gay activist, and include information related to political organizations, candidates, and various Philadelphia elections.

Lesbian Tide Sept 1972

The SCRC also holds a variety of newspapers and magazines published by and for the LGBTQ community both in Philadelphia and further afield, including: Philadelphia Gay News, 1973- today; the PLGTF Bulletin, 1978-82; Gayzette, 1974-75; G.L.A.D. Briefs, 1979-1986, New Gay Life, 1977-78, The Baltimore Gay Paper, 1984-87; Common Lives, Lesbian Lives, 1983-1996; The Lesbian Tide, 1971-75 and 1978-80; and Kater Street, 1978-83.

–Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, SCRC

City Parks Association of Philadelphia

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The City Parks Association of Philadelphia was chartered on May 23, 1888, to create and maintain open spaces as park areas for the citizens of Philadelphia. Since that time, the association has worked with city government to establish parks such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) Park (originally named League Island Park) and Pennypack Park. The association advocated for the city government to pass zoning laws and continues today to work for the improvement and preservation of parks, squares, playgrounds, and waterways in Philadelphia and surrounding areas.

Swimmers at League Island Park, July 1925. City Parks Association of Philadelphia Records, SCRC 86, Special Collections Research Center

The Special Collections Research Center holds the records of the City Parks Association. The collection contains meeting minutes and agendas, annual reports, financial records, correspondence, news clippings, and photographs. There is also information related to various specific parks and the Fairmount Park Commission, as well as correspondence, financial, and property records related to Awbury Arboretum and its historic Francis Cope House in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.

Rose Garden plan for Awbury Arboretum, undated. City Parks Association of Philadelphia Records, SCRC 86, Special Collections Research Center

Also included in the collection are captured websites, a new initiative by the SCRC and the Digital Library Initiatives department. Using the Archive-It service, periodic “captures” of the website are taken, and are available to the public. Captures of the City Parks Association are available from between 2002 to 2015, and will continue to be harvested, preserved, and made available.

The collection’s photographs, with the exception of slides, have been digitized and are available online on the Temple University Digital Collections website.

We celebrate with our Temple Press colleagues the publication of Jim McClelland and Lynn Miller’s  City in a Park:  A History of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park System.

–Katy Rawdon, Coordinator of Technical Services, SCRC

 

 

National History Day

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Masterman High School Students doing research at the SCRC

National History Day is a year-long educational program that attracts thousands of middle and high school students, and educators nationwide. Students compete at the local and state levels, which award participants the opportunity to present their work in a national contest held every June at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Masterman High School Students

The competition was established in 1974 by Professor David Van Tassell who was on faculty in the History Department at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Its purpose is to provide invaluable experiences and opportunities for students to conduct historical research and develop critical thinking, writing, and communication skills. Student participants may submit individual or group projects in the form of a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance, or website. The program also offers professional development opportunities for educators through training, and access to varied historical resources that help them to create more robust teaching curricula.

Since 2006, the Special Collection Research Center has participated in NHD programs and has hosted class visits to the archives from Philadelphia area schools including Masterman and Constitution high schools, and LaSalle High School for Boys. Visiting students spend hours combing through the original news clippings and photographs files of Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and Philadelphia Inquirer newspapers for research projects covering a myriad of events such as the integration of Girard College, the 1967 school board riots, the MOVE bombing, and prominent Philadelphia individuals including Father Divine, Frank Rizzo, and Father Paul Washington.

Masterman High School Students, October 2015

In 2015, students from Masterman placed in local and state competitions: Jenny Chan qualified for the national competition for her documentary entitled “Robert Smalls: Not so Small After All.” This Fall a new group of Masterman 10th graders has been visiting the SCRC to research topics for the 2016 NHD competition theme, “Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History.”

For more information about NHD activities and programs in the Philadelphia area visit the NHD Philly website.

–Brenda Galloway-Wright, Associate Archivist

Einstein Medical Center History

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Illustration of Jewish Hospital and Home designed by Frank Furness and George W. Hewitt, Fourteenth Annual Report of the Jewish Hospital, 1879

On September 23, 1865, Jewish leaders in Philadelphia incorporated the Jewish Hospital Association of Philadelphia, now known as Einstein Medical Center. In the aftermath of the Civil War, the association’s officers, led by Alfred T. Jones, Isadore Binswanger, Samuel Weil, and Mayer Sulzberger, sought to erect a hospital under Jewish auspices in response to the lack medical care afforded to members of the Jewish community and the employment discrimination Jews were subject to at other area hospitals. The preamble to the constitution of the Jewish Hospital Association states “It is the duty of Israelites to take care of the suffering and needy ones among them, and as the sick are especially objects of charity and public solicitude, and since there is no institution now in existence within the State of Pennsylvania under the control of Israelites wherein they can place their sick, and where these can enjoy during their illness all the benefits and consolations of our religion.”

On August 6, 1866, the Jewish Hospital opened for the reception of patients. The original building was located at Haverford Road and 56th Street in West Philadelphia with room for twenty patients–ten for the sick and ten for inmates of the Asylum for the Aged, Infirm, and Destitute. Philadelphia’s Jewish Hospital was the third such hospital to be established in the United States after the Cincinnati Jewish Hospital (1849) and the Jews’ Hospital of New York (1852). In its first five months of operation, the hospital treated twenty-eight patients including three “non-Israelites.” Nonsectarian from its inception, the Jewish Hospital was committed to “reducing or eliminating the attitudes and prejudices that mixed medical practice with religious and moral views.” Unlike other hospitals in Philadelphia at the time, the Jewish Hospital was “was free of charge to all poor and worthy applicants without regard to nationality or creed.”

Nurses, resident physician Dr. Edwin Jarecki, and Dr. Knipe, Jewish Hospital, York and Tabor Roads, 1896

To learn more about the history of the Albert Einstein Medical Center and its predecessor, the Jewish Hospital, use the hospital archives and these resources in the Special Collections Research Center:   Mankind and Medicine: A History of Philadelphia’s Albert Einstein Medical Center by Maxwell Whiteman; Edwin A. Jarecki, M.D. Resident Physician Jewish Hospital of Philadelphia, 1892-1934 by William I. Heine; and History of the Jewish Hospital Association of Philadelphia by Henry N. Wessel.

-Jessica M. Lydon, Associate Archivist SCRC

Cigar Making in Philadelphia

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T&O Offices, 1900

National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed each year from September 15th to October 15th. During this month, the cultures and contribution of Americans whose ancestors come from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America are celebrated. It’s a good opportunity to highlight some materials from the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) that relate to one of the many Hispanic groups that make up the fabric of this country: Puerto Ricans in Philadelphia.

Like many immigrant groups, Puerto Ricans came to the area in search of employment opportunities. Starting slowly in the late 19th century, and accelerating through the 20th century, they immigrated to Philadelphia, a thriving industrial city.

T&O Cigar Making Floor, 1900

Among the many industries where they found employment was cigar manufacturing. For many years Philadelphia was one of the leading manufacturers of cigars in the United States. Consequently, some of Philadelphia’s Latino communities can trace their origins to enclaves that grew up around cigar factories in North Philadelphia neighborhoods.

T & O Cigar Banding Department, 1900

One such factory, located in the Northern Liberties neighborhood, was owned by the Theobald & Oppenheimer Cigar Company. Founded in 1860, the T & O Cigar Company was one of the largest cigar manufacturers in the city. In 1900, the company opened a new factory at 1147 North 4th Street. To memorialize this opening the company created an album, with over two dozen sepia-toned photographs of the offices, warehouse, factory floor, and workers, who hand-rolled the cigars. (The album was donated to the SCRC in 2012.)

T&O Cigar Factory Building, 1900

As Puerto Rican immigration to Philadelphia increased throughout the post-war years, organizations such as the Nationalities Service Center (established in 1921) began to respond to the needs of this group, as it had to previous waves of immigrants, by providing information, guidance, and services on such issues as housing, education, and employment. The programs and activities provided by the center were aimed at helping to ease the transition of living and working in a new place. A parallel goal of the center was to promote and conserve the cultural values of immigrant communities for the enrichment of American life. These efforts to aid the Puerto Rican immigrant community, as well as many other ethnic communities, are documented in the Records of the Nationalities Service Center, one of the collection in the SCRC’s Urban Archives.

-Josué Hurtado, Coordinator of Public Services & Outreach