Tagged Rosenbach
Have a Whale of a Time Celebrating Herman Melville!
Badum-bum… All bad puns aside, today is Herman Melville's birthday (his 199th – next year will be a big one!) and the Free Library is paying tribute to the American Homer! Our friends at the Rosenbach have an extensive…
Join the Free Library for Wawa Welcome America Festivities!
For the past 25 years, America’s birthplace (Philly, of course!) has celebrated America’s birthday (July 4, of course!) with Wawa Welcome America – a multi-day festival of FREE multicultural and multigenerational…
Journey Around the World at the Rosenbach This Summer!
For the second year in a row, Summer of Wonder is teaming up with the Rosenbach to offer free admission for families to the museum! Once you step through the museum’s stately front doors, you’ll find a house filled with…
Celebrate National Poetry Month
It’s April, everyone, and you know what that means – it’s National Poetry Month ! Each year, the Academy of American Poets "highlights the extraordinary legacy and ongoing achievement of American poets" by…
Violet Oakley and Edith Emerson: Painters and Partners
Now on view at the Rosenbach, Of Two Minds: Creative Couples in Art & History showcases the creations of romantic couples who inspired, instructed, or even assisted one another in making art or knowledge. In honor…
Celebrating History's Unsung Creative Couples
On February 7, we opened a new exhibition celebrating the art and achievements of romantic couples, from the powerful royalty of the 16th century to cinema stars of Old Hollywood to local artists creating together today. Of Two…
Winter Reflections on the Year Without a Summer
Greetings from Frozen Philadelphia! After a snowy beginning to the new year and a lot of single-digit temperatures, we're bundled up and back in the office. And as we shiver on our way to and from the museum, we're…
Frankenstein200 at the Rosenbach
On January 1, 1818, the London publishing house Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones published a book titled Frankenstein , or The Modern Prometheus . The publication did not name its author, but the book had a…
Reading Moby-Dick for the First Time
I’ve never read Moby-Dick . I know! I work at the Rosenbach, where one of the world’s best collections of Herman Melville’s work resides, and I haven’t read his most famous book. I’ve admired his…
The Science of Bram Stoker's Dracula
Since Frankenstein & Dracula: Gothic Monsters, Modern Science opened on Friday the 13th of October, I’ve fielded a few questions from surprised visitors: Dracula , really? It’s not difficult to see the…
Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden Visits the Free Library of Philadelphia!
Earlier this week, Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden made a whirlwind visit to the Rosenbach and the Parkway Central Library , and we couldn't have been more thrilled to have her! On her tour, she was able to view a selection…
Rosh Hashanah Is a SWEET Time to Visit the Free Library
Rosh Hashanah —the celebration of the Jewish new year—begins at sundown on Wednesday night, September 20. Even those not celebrating the holiday may be preparing, as Philadelphia schools are closed Thursday and Friday .…
Mary Shelley's Indestructible Heart
As the opening date for Frankenstein & Dracula approaches, we've been revisiting some of the strange ( and occasionally salacious ) stories from the lives of the Romantic authors whose dark and imaginative stories…
#ThrowbackThursday: Re-reading Beatrix Potter’s Little Pig Robinson
Little Pig Robinson , published in 1930, is the last book in Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit series , though it was one of the first to be written. In a letter from 1893, Potter described seeing a pig on a ship in the harbor at…
Celebrate Family Fun Month with the Free Library!
August is Family Fun Month , and the Free Library has some ideas for you and your family to celebrate together, library-style! Check it out: Enjoy Oval+ programs in the newly-reopened Right outside of the Parkway Central Library on Vine…
Mapping Ulysses
James Joyce is said to have told his acquaintance, artist and writer Frank Budgen, that he wanted his novel Ulysses to "give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city suddenly disappeared from the earth, it could be…
Re-Joyce: The Rosenbach Celebrates James Joyce with its Annual Bloomsday Festival
June 16 is observed around the world as a celebration of James Joyce and his epic Ulysses , a novel that has been called everything from masterfully moving to hilariously obscene. Nowhere in the United States is this global literary…
#MysteryMonday: "Cant" Stop Wondering about Criminal Slang?
Crossposted to the Rosenblog . One of the first things you may see when you enter Clever Criminals and Daring Detectives is a wall of extremely odd words in bold typography: Peg tantrums. Tip the velvet. Potatoe trap. What could these…
#MysteryMonday: Get Clued in to Edgar Allan Poe and More
Move over, London! England’s capital city may count Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot among its resident gumshoes, but only Philadelphia can be called the true birthplace of the modern detective tale. In celebration of our…
Crack the Case with We the Detectives
Since the early days of printing, readers have been gripped by real-life tales of highwaymen and murderers, the last words of executed criminals, and fictional detective stories which have long fascinated us. What has made this form of…