All the world’s a stage

HSP has a large collection or programs, playbills, and other ephemera from Philadelphia’s Academy of Music (once called the American Academy of Music), dating from its beginnings in the late 1850s to the late 20th century.  The collection was recently adopted and is my current processing project.  Though I’ve barely scratched the surface (having just [...]

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The Allen Family Papers

Last week I began to create a finding aid for the Allen Family Papers. From what I can tell so far, the majority of the collection seems to be Alfred Reginald Allen Sr.’s (1876-1918) correspondences with his father, son, wife, and other family members. Leslie Hunt, a former archivist at HSP, had painstakingly inventoried some [...]

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A Home for Retired Actors

This summer, I spent some time going through the Edwin Forrest Home Records to identify items for digitization.  This collection documents the Home, its operation, its residents, and its dissolution. The Edwin Forrest Home was founded after the actor Edwin Forrest’s death to provide a place where retired actors could live comfortably and be cared [...]

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