American celebrities album
Title
American celebrities album
Description
Two volume set of albums containing predominately cartes de visite photographic portraits of prominent American 19th-century figures in politics, education, and the arts. Portraits depict actors, artists, authors, Congressmen, educators, governors, military leaders, physicians, publishers, religious leaders, social reformers, scientists, and U.S. presidents and their spouses. Includes mostly vignette and bust-length portraits and a small number of full length portraits. Also contains a small number of trimmed portrait engravings, tintypes, and a photo-collage depicting evangelist D. L. Moody with the under photograph copyrighted 1877. Small number of sitters are unidentified., Men sitters include P. T. Barnum; Henry Ward Beecher; John Brown; Ned Buntline; Samuel Clemens; Jefferson Davis; O. S. Fowler; Oliver Wendell Holmes; Abraham Lincoln; Samuel Morse; Thomas Nast; Hiram Powers; Winfield Scott; Gerrit Smith; Cornelius Vanderbilt; John Wanamaker; Brigham Young; Native American chiefs Ouray, Spotted Tail, and Sitting Bull; and African Americans Frederick Douglass and performer "Blind" Tom. Women sitters include presidential spouses Frances Cleveland and Lucretia Garfield; reformers Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Woodhull; authors Louisa May Alcott, Helen Hunt (Jackson), Harriet Beecher Stowe; sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Vinnie Ream; and performers Maria Albani, Charlotte Cushman, and Kate Field., Title from item's cover., Photographers include Mathew Brady, E. & H. T. Anthony; Jeremiah Gurney; and George Kendall Warren., Majority of sitters identified by a manuscript note on the album page or on portrait or an inscribed label., Brown leather bindings with gilt, stamped in gilt on front boards: Volume I: American Celebrities. Vol. I.; Volume II: American Celebrities. Vol. II. Stamped in gilt on spines: Album., Purchase 1985., Description revised 2021., Access points revised 2021., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., See "American Celebrities Album" item-level records for digital images of all identified individual sitters.
Date
[ca. 1870-ca. 1890]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums [P.9100.1 & 2]
Photographic views of New City Building
Title
Photographic views of New City Building
Description
Albums of progress photographs of the early construction of City Hall built 1871-1901 on Penn Square after the designs of John McArthur, Jr. Photographs show different stages of the construction of the foundation and lower floor of the building between 1873 and 1875. Includes images of the dirt sub basement; construction materials, equipment, and workers; aerial views of the built foundation; partially completed walls and abutments; and studio views of columns and architectural ornaments. Several of the views include scaffolding; horse-drawn carts; pulleys; piles of construction debris; Pennsylvania Railroad cars on Market Street; and workers and well-dressed men, probably the commissioners, reviewing and posed on or near constructed parts of the building and construction materials. Views also show surrounding cityscape, including the Masonic Temple (Broad and Filbert); United States Mint (1331-1337 Chestnut Street); the Seventh Presbyterian Church (Broad Street above Chestnut Street); Pennsylvania Railroad Freight Depot (13th and Market); La Salle College High School (Filbert and Juniper); Sharpless & Watts, flooring tile (1325 Market Street); the spires of Arch Street Methodist Episcopal Church (s.w. cor. Broad & Arch) and First Baptist Church (n.w. cor. Broad and Arch); and other surrounding businesses (beer hall, wall paper, and furniture) and residences., Volume 1 (Oct. 1873-Aug. 1874) contains two tipped in letters, dated December 26, 1873 and June 27, 1874, from President of the Commissioners for the Erection of the Public Buildings Samuel C. Perkins. Correspondence presents the stereographs, "authorized to be taken by the commissioners," as a means for the library to "have for preservation in [the] archives a complete photographic record of the progress of a work which under any aspect must be considered as of marked importance in our local history.", Stereographs numbered, dated, and printed with the series title "Views of Construction in Sub-Basement" or "Views of Construction" and the names of the architect, chief assistant, and board of commissioners on the verso., Calf bindings, polished and mottled., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012., Volume 1 image 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. 116., Samuel C. Perkins, a Philadelphia lawyer, served as president of the Commissioners for the Erection of the Public Buidlings 1872-1891., Housed in phase boxes.
Creator
Cremer, James, 1821-1893
Date
1873-1875
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department albums - Cremer [(1) 23455.D & (2) 23455.D]
[Scrapbook of portraits]
Title
[Scrapbook of portraits]
Description
Scrapbook containing portrait prints and photographs of American and European historical figures, dignitaries, and celebrities, including several images of Queen Victoria. Majority of portraits are cartes de visite depicting full or three-quarter length views, often also showing props, including balustrades, chairs, and backdrops. Sitters include Simon Cameron, Lord Byron, Lord Cranworth, Charlotte Cushman, the young Edward VII, Percy Fitzgerald, Joseph Hew[e]s, John Hogan, James Logan, Frederick Marryat, Michelangelo, D. L. Moody, Napoleon III, Winfield Scott, Rev. Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, Queen Victoria, Sir William Wilde, Lady Wilde, and Lord Wodehouse. Also contains a small number of unidentified portraits; patriotic song sheets illustrated with military leaders of No. 1 and No. 2 Arméee Française, including Felix Douay; and images of statuary, including the sculpture of Alexander Hamilton by Horatio Stone., Title supplied by cataloger., Some items identified by, or contain, manuscript notes by Smith inscribed on mount or verso. Notes often explicate provenance., Various artists, photographers, and engravers including A. Blaikely, D. J. Pound, F. Winterhalter, J. B. Longacre, F. Kearny, A. Bernoud, W. Behnes, O. A. Lawson, J. Horsburgh, M. B. Brady, John Sartain, J. Bonnet, O. W. Wilson, C. Herberth, and Fratelli Alinari., Various printers and publishers including George C. Leighton, John Wanamaker & Co., B. Rogers, Adam Waldie, and Morris pere et fils., Forms part of M. Rebecca Darby Smith Scrapbooks Collection., Cataloging funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-506-19-10), 2010-2012.
Creator
Smith, Mary Rebecca Darby
Date
[ca. 1855-ca. 1871]
Location
Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 4-Alcove 2 [Is 6 1518.Q, vol. 1]