The Acquisitions Table: Cinderella.  Triumph edition.  Philadelphia: B. Wilmsen, ca. 1880.

Cinderella.  Triumph edition.  Philadelphia: B. Wilmsen, ca. 1880. Bib ID: 604082. The now-obscure Philadelphia publisher B. Wilmsen published this pop-up version of Cinderella enhanced by cut tissue paper as part of his Triumph edition series, which featured fairy tales including Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel. Although Wilmsen held the American copyright, the book was actually ...

The Summer of Smearcase

As we wind down a summer with limited travel and with conferences postponed or transitioned online, I can’t help but reminisce about a summer in the far distant past (last year) when two bright young AAS staff members, who really enjoy food (and sweet treats), descended upon the city of Baltimore in search of local ...

Santa and the Christmas Tree in Nineteenth-Century American Children’s Books

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Although we might think of Santa and an evergreen Christmas tree as inevitably wedded in nineteenth-century children’s book illustration, that was not necessarily the case.  Until about 1840, New Year’s Day was favored over Christmas as the family-appropriate winter holiday in the young American Republic, particularly in New England, where the descendants of the Puritans ...

The Acquisitions Table: Manuscript Music Book

Music Book, 1819. A new addition to the Music Book Collection, this volume contains handwritten bars of both religious and secular music with no corresponding lyrics. Most songs are German hymns, and are simple compositions. Occasionally throughout the volume, the owner of this book transcribed more complicated pieces of music (Rondo Allegro, Trio, and Sonatina, for ...

The Acquisitions Table: The First German-American Cookbook

David Whitesell, curator of books, reports on a recent acquisition: Die Wahre Brandtewein-Brennerey, oder Brandtewein- Gin- und Cordialmacher-Kunst:  wie auch die a?chte Fa?rbe-Kunst, Blau, Roth, Gelb und Gru?n zu fa?rben, auf Baumwalle, Leinen, und Wolle … [Reading, PA?: Gottlob Jungmann and Carl Andreas Bruckmann?], 1802. Very rare third of four recorded editions of what might be ...

The Acquisitions Table: An die freyen Erwähler von Berks County

An die freyen Erwa?hler von Berks County. Reading, PA, [ca. 1823] This German-language broadside from Berks County, PA, celebrates the life and achievements of Andrew Gregg (1755-1835). Gregg had served in the Delaware militia during the Revolutionary War and was elected a Congressman and Senator for Pennsylvania from 1807 to 1813. By 1823, Gregg had been ...

The Acquisitions Table: German-American author Charles Sealsfield

The Karl J. R. Arndt Collection of Charles Sealsfield Mrs. Blanca H. Arndt of Worcester has donated to AAS the remarkable collection of works by and about the German-American author Charles Sealsfield (1793-1864) formed by her late husband, Karl J. R. Arndt. Numbering some 250 volumes, with accompanying research files, the Arndt gift elevates AAS’s ...