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The Athenaeum of Philadelphia

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11/04/2026

Food for Thought 🍔 A curated list of fiction and nonfiction books related to food 🍽️

10/23/2026

🌈A miniature color chart published in 1890 by H.W. Johns Manufacturing Co.

ℹ️ Trade Catalogue Collection

10/15/2026

An early 20th century costume photoshoot 🎭

The subjects in costume are members of the Rose Valley artisan community - a community founded in 1901 by William Lightfoot Price during the American Arts and Crafts movement that sought to create a space where the production of goods through handmade craftsmanship could continue to survive outside the rapidly growing mass production industries.

The members of this community organized various performing arts events including concerts, plays, and dances at the Guild Hall, a mill that was adapted into a theatre. They wrote plays, designed sets, made costumes, printed programs and acted.

ℹ️ Glass negatives from the Thomas/Price Collection and Rose Valley Collection. Digitized on Philadelphia Architects and Buildings (PAB) www.philadelphiabuildings.org

10/14/2026

Come for a talk with Co-curator, Matthew Affron, on the making of the first U.S. retrospective dedicated to French-American artist Marcel Duchamp in 50 years.

🗓️ Monday, November 2
🕰️ 6:00pm
📍Co-curator talk at The Athenæum
🎟️ Open to all. Register in advance.
🖼️ Exhibition on view at Philadelphia Museum of Art through January 31, 2027

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Matthew Affron is the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since joining the museum in 2013, he has curated or co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Paint the Revolution (2016), Matisse in the 1930s (2022), Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 (2025), and Marcel Duchamp (2026).

10/09/2026

Building tours are back✨

If you’re curious about how you can benefit from becoming a member or just want to know what goes on in here 👀 come inside!

You’ll learn about the history of The Athenaeum, see our beautiful Reading Room, our unique collection of 19th-century furniture, and our newly opened garden on a guided tour.

⏳Approx 40 min
📍The Athenæum
🎟️ Advanced registration required.
🔗Link in bio

10/07/2026

🌱New Garden Reveal🌱

Last week, we opened the newly reimagined Athenaeum garden designed by award winning, landscape designer Wambui Ippolito. Featuring fragrant perennials, flowering vines, and seasonal color, the garden extends The Athenaeum's mission of learning and discovery into the landscape.

Come by to see how landscapes can connect history, memory, and civic life.

📍St. James Place and S. Randolph Street, behind The Athenaeum

This garden was made possible by our friends at PHS Pennsylvania Horticultural Society with the support of The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage.

📸:

09/25/2026

Explore research tools and visual prompts to craft unique stories that are fully place-centric in this 3-hour workshop. Locale is vital to all narratives. As important as human behavior and historical context, place creates, alters and necessitates plot lines.

🗓️ Saturday, October 24
🕰️ 11:00am-2:00pm
📍The Athenæum
🎟️ Open to all. Advance registration required.
📝 Works in progress are welcome!

ABOUT THE TEACHER
Cordelia Frances Biddle is a feminist and historian. Her newest novel, I Remember You, connects eras within Philadelphia’s rich and turbulent history (pub date May, 2027). Her book Listen to Me: The Women of the Bible Speak Out is a vivid retelling of patriarchal sacred texts. She’s now adapting the work for the stage. The River Was Waiting is Part II in the Gorne Trilogy - following They Believed They Were Safe. Both novels focus on the aftermath of trauma. Prior fictions include the books Sins of Commission, The Actress, Without Fear, Deception’s Daughter, and The Conjurer. These novels are set during the early Victorian era in Philadelphia and explore women’s issues, and the chasm between wealth and poverty. Her first novel, Beneath the Wind, examined one woman’s plight during the Edwardian Age. Her nonfiction books include Biddle, Jackson, and a Nation in Turmoil - which received the Athenaeum’s 2021 Literary Award - and Saint Katharine: The Life of Katharine Drexel… [Read the full bio on our website]

09/16/2026

A bulletin issued in 1915 by the State Board of Education in Harrisburg, PA four years after the School Code of Pennsylvania was issued (1911) which centralized administrative control and standardized modern educational practices. Contents include plans for 1-4 rooms schools, district high schools, rural school consolidation, suggested equipment for rural schools, heating and ventilation systems, and sanitary systems.

ℹ️Trade Catalogue Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia

ABOUT THE SCHOOL CODE OF PA
The School Code of Pennsylvania was one of many calls for reform in response to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and immigration during the Progressive Era. The main objectives of this code were:

1. To establish a new six-member State Board of Education that would enforce state laws, manage school policies, and equalize educational advantages across different regions.

2. To unify ward schools into centralized city school districts.

3. To establish mandatory attendance laws that would ensure children were in classrooms rather than factory environments.

4. To formalize levels of teaching certificates and establish minimum teacher salaries based on those certifications.

5. To nationalize teacher training by bringing “Normal Schools” under state ownership.

ℹ️ Read the full School code of Pennsylvania and other laws : Act of May 18th, 1911 at catalog.hathitrust.org

09/10/2026

🔸An Alphabet of Celebrities🔸

A book published in 1900 filled with poetic rhymes and bordered illustrations caricaturing well known literary, artistic and historical figures.

ℹ️ American Imprints Collection at the Athenaeum of Philadelphia

08/22/2026

This is the DeVoe Decorative Colorguide, a mechanized apparatus with hand-operated dials that allows the user to mix and match colors of five different interior decorating elements (trim, walls, furniture, ceilings, floors) for four different rooms (kitchen, bathroom, dining room, living room), with the resulting combinations seen through a viewing window in the case top. It was manufactured by Pathe Engineering and Tool Manufacturing Corporation and introduced by F.W. Devoe & C.T. Raynolds Company to help customers in their decision-making process for interior painting.

Date: 1935 (circa) - 1940 (circa)
Medium: metal, paper, plastic, wood, ink
Extent: 21.75" L x 12.5" W x 4.0" D

ABOUT THE ONLINE EXHIBITION

“Color in a Can: Early Marketing of Paint in America” is an exhibition of advertising signs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries represents a small portion of the historical paint research collection at The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. In addition to signs, the collection also includes more than 450 items such as brochures, trade catalogs, color samples, and related materials that document the rapid growth and exuberant promotion of the paint industry. Some of the paint company names are familiar; many other companies, with names now obscure, eventually fell by the wayside or were bought out by larger corporations.

The invaluable collection from which this exhibition is drawn exists largely through the efforts of former Athenaeum Executive Director Dr. Roger W. Moss, whose extensive research and writing forms the foundation of historic paint study in America. The online exhibition and original exhibition (January 15-April 22, 2016) was curated by Denise R. Fox.

omeka.philaathenaeum.org/ColorInACan

Address

219 S 6th Street
Philadelphia, PA
19106

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 7pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5:15pm
Friday	9am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 3pm

Telephone

+12159252688

Website

http://www.PhilaAthenaeum.org/

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