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Title: Arch St. Theatre, above 6th St., Phila
Description: Shows the theater built 1826-28 after the designs of Philadelphia architect William Strickland at 609-615 Arch Street. Also shows two women and a man posed in front of the building; a playbill on display; street lamps; and adjacent businesses, including Christian Bird's Billiard Hall., Title from manuscript note on mount of (8)1322.F.5d., Orange and yellow paper mounts with square corners., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., One of images originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of views of Philadelphia., Manuscript note on mount of 7992.F.1: Arch St. Theatre, Philadelphia., Digitization funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
Creator: Newell, Robert, 1822-1897, photographer
Date: [ca. 1868]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department stereo - Newell - Theaters [(8)1322.F.5d-2; 7992.F.1]

Title: Two of the killers
Description: View showing two outlandishly-attired members of the Philadelphia gang known as the "Killers" carousing on the street. One sits on a fire hydrant and the other leans against a lamp pole (posted with a "Sale" notice") at a street tenanted by a "Grocery" and adorned with broadsides. The men wear patterned pants, jackets with tails, oversized neck ties, and top hats. One also wears a pin adorned "K." They each have their hands in their pockets and smoke cigarettes. The grocery displays a barrel of brooms in addition to signs reading "Coffee Sugar Tea" and "Teas Coffee 5." The broadsides adorning the opposite building advertise "Auction this Evening" and "Circus The Old Man of the Mountain..... Dan Rice Clown." The playbill is illustrated with a scene of an equestrian trick. The "Killers," organized circa 1846, were a band of young men who menaced the Moyamensing neighborhood and were associated with the Moyamensing Hose Company and the Democratic Keystone Club., Date from Poulson inscription on recto: 1848., Wainwright suggests date of circa 1855., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 761, Wainwright retrospective conversion project, edited., Reproduced in Edwin Wolf's Philadelphia: Portrait of American city (Published by Camino Books in cooperation the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1990), page 199.
Date: [1848]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department *W408 [P.2219]

Title: Arch Street Theatre
Description: View of the north side of the 600 block of Arch Street, showing the Arch Street Theater built 1826-28 after the designs of Philadelphia architect William Strickland at 609-615 Arch Street. Also shows Bird's Billiard Hall operated by Christian Bird at 605-607 Arch Street. Includes two playbills on display in front of the theater, street lamps with large fixtures, an unhitched carriage on the sidewalk, and several horse-drawn carriages traveling along Arch Street., Title from photographer's label on verso. Also includes list of forty-one other titles in the series (No. 140-180)., Yellow mount with rounded corners., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
Creator: Bartlett, George O., photographer
Date: [ca. 1868]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department stereo - Bartlett - Streets [P.2002.21.2]

Title: [Demolition of Burd Mansion, s.w. corner Ninth and Chestnut streets]
Description: Exterior view depicting the gutted mansion of deceased Philadelphia lawyer, Edward Shippen Burd, built 1801-1802 after the designs of Benjamin Henry Latrobe at 900-906 Chestnut Street. Shows the walls covered with broadsides, including playbills for "Carncross & Dixey's Minstrels." As stipulated in Burd's will, following the death of his wife, Elizabeth Sims Burd in 1861, the residence was razed and replaced by storefronts, the revenue given to remaining Burd heirs. Mrs. Burd was the grandniece of Joseph Sims, the original owner of the mansion., Title supplied by cataloger., Date based on demolition of the depicted mansion., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of engravings relating to Philadelphia. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [ca. 1862]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - unidentified - residences [(6)1322.F.49e]

Title: [Demolition of Burd Mansion, s.w. corner Ninth and Chestnut streets]
Description: Exterior view depicting the gutted mansion of deceased Philadelphia lawyer, Edward Shippen Burd, after the designs of Benjamin Henry Latrobe at 900-906 Chestnut Street. Two men stand in front of the former residence covered with broadsides, including playbills for "Carncross & Dixey's Minstrels." As stipulated in Burd's will, following the death of his wife, Elizabeth Sims Burd in 1861, the residence was razed and replaced by storefronts, the revenue given to remaining Burd heirs. Mrs. Burd was the grandniece of Joseph Sims, original owner of the mansion., Title supplied by cataloger., Date based on demolition of the depicted mansion., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of engravings relating to Philadelphia. McAllister Collection, gift, 1886., Reproduced in Kenneth Finkel's Nineteenth century photography in Philadelphia. (New York: Dover Publications, 1980), p. 181., Reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 24., Arcadia caption text: The Burd mansion on the south side of the 900 block of Chestnut Street became a casualty of the commercial push westward in 1861, when the house was demolished to make way for a row of storefronts. When it was constructed sixty years earlier for Philadelphia lawyer Edward Shippen Burd, after designs by Philadelphia architect Benjamin Latrobe, the house sat on the western edge of the developed city, and the site was surrounded by undeveloped or only partially developed lots., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of the Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014.
Date: [ca. 1862]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - unidentified - residences [(6)1322.F.55d]

Title: Jefferson House, so. west corner of Seventh and Market st
Description: View showing the house owned by Jacob Graff in which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Signage adorns the building advertising current tenants William Brown, clothing, and D.E. Thompson's Book and Job Printing Office. Also shows an awning reading "Birth Place of Liberty" attached to the building; playbills on display; a hitching post; and a view of the adjacent business, William Jordan's Shoe Warehouse at 232 Market Street. The building was razed circa 1883., Title, date, and photographer's imprint from Poulson inscription on mount., Originally part of a series of eleven scrapbooks compiled by Philadelphia antiquarian Charles A. Poulson in the late 1850s entitled "Illustrations of Philadelphia" volume 5, page 92? The scrapbooks contained photographs of 18th-century public, commercial, and residential buildings in the city of Philadelphia collected by Poulson to document the vanishing architectural landscape., Reproduced in Kenneth Finkel's Nineteenth century photography in Philadelphia (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. in cooperation with the Library Company of Philadelphia, 1980), entry #59., McClees, a prominent Philadelphia photographer and daguerreotypist, produced some of the earliest paper photographic views of Philadelphia between 1853 and 1859.
Creator: M'Clees, Jas. E. (James E.), photographer
Date: 1855
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - McClees - Residences - G [P.2295]

Title: 3' o'clock in the morning 3 uhr morgens
Description: Amusing genre scene depicting three drunk men stumbling arm-in-arm down a city block in front of fenced, wooden scaffolding. The man on the left skips, raises his hat and supports the unconscious man in the middle, who wears a lady's bonnet on his head. The man on the right also supports the bonnet-wearing man while he clings his arm around a lamp post as he holds a long pipe. Playbills and advertisements adorn the wooden fence in front of the scaffolding. The postings promote the National Police Gazette, Wheatley's Arch Street Theatre, Walnut Street Theatre, John Drew's National Theatre, the Academy of Music, and steam boat Edwin Forrest of Trenton Capt. McMakin. An African American coach driver, with a whip in hand, watches the frivolity in the background., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 4, Atwater Kent Museum: 54.8.1, Copy with variant title and imprint ["Three in the Morning," Childs, 63 North 2nd St.] held in the collections of the American Antiquarian Society. AAS copy dated ca. 1863, probably 1860.
Date: c1857
Location: Atwater Kent Museum AKM 54.8.1

Title: [Chestnut Street Theatre]. North East corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia
Description: View of the second building of the theater, built 1820-1822 after the designs of William Strickland, Pedestrians walk on the sidewalk and read playbills on display. Also shows partial views of neighboring buildings, including Hart’s Building owned by prominent Jewish publisher and philanthropist, Abraham Hart, erected 1848 (537-539 Chestnut). A gas light with a shade illustrated with a dancer adorns the Melodeon (611-613 Chestnut) and signage advertising D. C. Baxter, engraver on wood, is partially visible on Hart’s Building. Theater razed 1856., Forms part of Poulson scrapbooks, Illustrations of Philadelphia, volume 4., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
Creator: Baxter, De Witt Clinton, ca. 1829-1881, engraver
Date: [ca. 1855]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Poulson scrapbooks - vol. 4 [(4)2526.F.73a]

Title: [Chestnut Street Theatre, 603-609 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia]
Description: View of the second building of the theater, built 1820-1822 after the designs of William Strickland, displaying several playbills for the last performance at the current building. Includes additional playbills displayed under a gaslight fixture in front of the adjacent theater, the Melodeon (611-613 Chestnut). Fixture adorned with shades advertising the "Melodeon Celebrated Troupe Dancer" and an illustration of a dancer. Also shows the opposite neighboring businesses of a shooting gallery and "Shakespeare Bowling Saloon" (601 Chestnut) and Hart's Building owned by prominent Jewish publisher and philanthropist, Abraham Hart, erected 1848 (537-539 Chestnut). Signage advertising Gilbert & Gihon, engravers on wood, is partially visible on Hart's Building and a poster showing a man shooting a pistol adorns the shooting gallery. Theater razed 1856., Title supplied by cataloguer., Photographer's blindstamp on mount of (6)1322.F.44., Originally part of a McAllister scrapbook of views of Philadelphia., Retrospective conversion record: original entry, edited., Published in Robert F. Looney's Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, 1839-1914 (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. in cooperation with The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1976), entry #125., Reproduced in The Print and Photograph Department of the Library Company of Philadelphia's Center City Philadelphia in the 19th century (Portsmouth, N.H.: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 16., Arcadia caption text: Referred to as the New Theatre to distinguish it from the Southwark, or Old, Theatre, the Chestnut Street Theatre opened in 1794 near the northwest corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets. After fire destroyed its building in 1820, the Association of the Proprietors of the New Theatre sold shares in the property and hired William Strickland to design a new building. Constructed at the same location in only eight months, the imposing marble structure included the statues of Comedy and Tragedy sculpted by William Rush, which survived the fire. To celebrate its opening, the managers held a contest for the best opening night address. Prize winner Charles Sprague’s verses were so well-received that his address was read a second night. The theater is shown here in 1855, shortly before being demolished.
Creator: M'Clees, Jas. E. (James E.), photographer
Date: May 1, 1855
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department photo - McClees - Theaters [(6)1322.F.44; (7)1322.F.63a]

Title: Junk shop at 13th & Pine
Description: View from the southwest depicting the exterior of the antique shop of James Eham, an African American, at 1237 Pine Street. Shop is heavily adorned with antiques and curiosities, including cigar store Native Americans, ship models, a rooster weather vane, and a ship's helm. Posters, including a playbill for a production of "Our Colored Boys Over There" at the African American playhouse, the Royal Theater (opened in 1920), cover an adjacent building. Other neighboring buildings are visible. Eham, born enslaved in Virginia, settled in Philadelphia in 1876 and soon after became an antiques dealer. By 1927, he owned two antique stores in Philadelphia and one in New York. Eham was also a Baptist minister, as well as worked as a hotel porter later in his life., Inscribed on negative: 3700., Title from negative sleeve., Date inferred from content., Modern reference print available., Original negative housed in freezer., Purchase 1988., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Research file about James Eham (1842-1930) available at repository.
Creator: Hand, Alfred, photographer
Date: [ca. 1920]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department 4x5 Film Negatives-Hand [P.9259.141]

Title: Junk shop at 13th & Pine
Description: View from the southwest depicting the exterior of the antique shop of James Eham, an African American, at 1237 Pine Street. Shop is heavily adorned with antiques and curiosities, including cigar store Native Americans, ship models, a rooster weather vane, and a ship's helm. Posters, including a playbill for a production of "Our Colored Boys Over There" at the African American playhouse, the Royal Theater (opened in 1920), cover an adjacent building. Other neighboring buildings are visible. Eham, born enslaved in Virginia, settled in Philadelphia in 1876 and soon after became an antiques dealer. By 1927, he owned two antique stores in Philadelphia and one in New York. Eham was also a Baptist minister, as well as worked as a hotel porter later in his life., Inscribed on negative: 3700., Title from negative sleeve., Date inferred from content., Modern reference print available., Original negative housed in freezer., Purchase 1988., Description revised 2022., Access points revised 2022., Part of digital collections catalog through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, Governor, 2013-2014., Research file about James Eham (1842-1930) available at repository.
Creator: Hand, Alfred, photographer
Date: [ca. 1920]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department 4x5 Film Negatives-Hand [P.9259.141]

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