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Library Company of Philadelphia

The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, is the oldest cultural institution in the United States and one of the premier independent research libraries in North America. Its primary focus is printed matter — it holds extraordinary depth in American print culture from the colonial period through the nineteenth century, alongside an important small collection of penmanship manuals. Next door, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) — holding over 19 million manuscript and graphic items — focuses on manuscripts; the two institutions work in tandem. Kaminski items at the Library Company, which include penmanship books with actual student writing in them, may serve researchers visiting either institution.

Several items were placed at the Library Company because of their Philadelphia publisher connections. The Christopher Sower Company published two of the books in the Kaminski holdings here. The Sower name traces to one of Philadelphia’s founding printing families — established in Germantown in 1738 — though by the time it was incorporated in 1888 it had become primarily a commercial educational publisher. The lineage is real; the prestige is historical. Other items come from more commercial publishers of the era and were chosen to fill gaps: these are the everyday schoolbooks that circulated widely in a prosperous Philadelphia, books that existed in quantity but were not actively collected. They are new additions to the Library Company’s holdings, complementary rather than duplicative.

The later-dated items — vertical writing books and others from the 1890s through the 1920s — fall beyond the Library Company’s usual collecting range, much as post-1905 material fills a gap at Columbia. They extend the Library Company’s holdings into a period otherwise thinly represented there.

One item may appear to be an outlier: the 1871 A Condensed Etymology by Walter S. Fortescue, A.M., late Principal of the Germantown Seminary for Young Ladies, printed in Boston line letter by the National Association for Publishing Musical and Literary Works for the Blind, Philadelphia. It is not a penmanship manual. But it belongs at the Library Company for two reasons: it complements the Michael Zinman Collection of Printing for the Blind, one of the Library Company’s significant special holdings, and it connects to the history of vertical and square-hand writing developed for blind students. It appears to be one of at most two known surviving copies, the other held by the American Printing House for the Blind Museum. The collection’s contact at the Library Company is Rachel D’Agostino.

23 items from Library Company of Philadelphia — 14 currently available on Archive.org. librarycompany.org

1810s (1 items)

• 1810 — Writing book of John Waters Thorne

1840s (1 items)

• 1848 — Writing book of Lestina A. Sanderson

1850–1854 (3 items)

• 1852 — Rand’s introduction to penmanship, new series, in eight numbers (not yet uploaded)
• 1852 — Specimens of penmanship written by Wilberforce. W. Freeman (not yet uploaded)
• 1853 — Esther Livezey writing book collection, school books, 1 of 5 (not yet uploaded)

1855–1859 (1 items)

• 1856 — Becker’s system of penmanship

1860–1864 (2 items)

• 1861 — Potter & Hammond’s analytical and progressive system of penmanship
• 1862 — Cowley’s system of practical penmanship

1870–1874 (1 items)

• 1871 — A condensed etymology of that portion of the English language derived from the Latin with copious illustrations of the correct use of words

1875–1879 (3 items)

• 1875 — Holden’s copy book cover (not yet uploaded)
• 1879 — The child’s book of language (not yet uploaded)
• 1879 — The model copy books with sliding copies.

1880–1884 (1 items)

• 1882 — Dinsmore’s model script spelling blanks

1885–1889 (1 items)

• 1885 — Krone’s schul-vorschriften

1895–1899 (2 items)

• 1898 — The popular system of penmanship
• 1898 — The standard vertical writing

1900–1904 (2 items)

• 1900 — Vere Foster copy books, lettering plain and ornamental (not yet uploaded)
• 1903 — Keystone practical system of penmanship

1905–1909 (2 items)

• 1906 — Economy method of writing
• 1907 — The Typewriter Exchange, catalogue with inserted letter (not yet uploaded)

1915–1919 (1 items)

• 1916 — Economy method of writing

1920s (2 items)

• 1928 — Economy method of writing, revised (not yet uploaded)
• 1928 — Economy method of writing, revised, student work (not yet uploaded)

Know something about an item in this collection? If you have a link, a date, a name, a related record, or any information that connects to a specific item — submit a contribution here. All submissions are reviewed before anything is made public.

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