Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia

05/16/2026

In honor of the United States Semiquincentennial, the Rare Book Department will be exploring items from our vast collection of Americana that reflect events, movements, trends, and voices from the past 250 years. Every month we will highlight one or two objects, from 1776 to 2026, on our social media.

We've made it to the Centennial!

On May 10, 1876, Philadelphia welcomed more than 100,000 people to the Centennial Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine–the first world’s fair in North America. The exhibition ran for six months and hosted 10 million visitors in Fairmount Park. The United States Centennial Commission constructed more than 200 buildings for the occasion with only two slated to remain when the fair closed: Horticultural Hall and Memorial Hall. A hurricane made the demolition of Horticultural Hall necessary, and the City tore it down in 1955, but Memorial Hall remains as the home of the Please Touch Museum.

The Women’s Pavilion was a late addition to the temporary structures. The Centennial Commission reallocated space in the main building and displaced the Women’s Department. Less than a year before opening, the Commission recommended to the Women’s Centennial Executive Committee that they raise funds for, plan, and construct a separate building for the exhibition of women’s accomplishments, which they did. With surplus funds raised, they published the National Cookery Book. In 2023, the Rare Book Department acquired a copy of this historic cookbook; an image of the Women’s Pavilion is on its cover in gold.

04/28/2026

The California Gold Rush was an incredibly significant albeit short-lived moment in American history. Over the period of seven years, between 1848 and 1855, nearly 300,000 people relocated to California, looking for that mother lode. Despite being such a relatively brief event, the effects have been lasting.

The sudden influx of people from over a dozen countries across the globe, all driven by the promise of wealth, had an enormous impact on the culture, economy, and natural landscape of the United States.

The population of San Francisco exploded from 200 to 36,000 over the course of 6 years.
Famine, disease, and genocidal massacres decimated the population of Indigenous Californians. Hydraulic dredging polluted the waterways and contaminated farmland.

This diary of an unnamed gold mine operator along the Yuba River documents the daily operations of an industrial mine between 1857 and 1858 and those who labored there.

RBD AMER 1857-1858 Y9D

04/22/2026

Next Wednesday, April 29, the Rare Book Department will be hosting artist Katie Strachan for a talk about her current exhibition in our alcove gallery. We hope you can join us from 5-7pm to hear about her work!

Katie Strachan is a multidisciplinary artist who divides her time between Asia and the US. Her clay work integrates various materials such as wax, wood and fiber to form manuscripts, sculpture, installation, and video art.

Her current exhibition in the Rare Book Department, Dollars to Donuts, explores the contradictions of the American Dream through ceramic works inspired by historic handwritten and devotional manuscript traditions, especially Pennsylvania German Fraktur. Drawing from research in rare book and archival collections, the exhibition considers how ideals such as virtue, equality, faith, and belonging are preserved, translated, and unsettled across time.

This exhibition is part of Radical Americana, a citywide initiative organized by The Clay Studio that unites 25 of Philadelphia’s arts and cultural institutions in a series of exhibitions responding to the Semiquincentennial. The project showcases research-driven work by 45 artists inspired by the history and art of 1776, 1876, and 1976, as well as the present moment. Together, these exhibitions celebrate Philadelphia’s historic role in shaping America’s cultural identity, civic life, and creative spirit, while inviting reflection and dialogue about the nation’s present and future.

04/01/2026

Join us tonight, April 1, from 5-7pm for a chance to see John Milton's annotated copy of Shakespeare's First Folio up close!

The Free Library of Philadelphia is fortunate to have in its collections this astonishing artifact which connects two of the greatest English writers of all time, and illustrates Shakespeare's profound influence on Milton.

Join the Rare Book Department for extended evening hours on the first Wednesday of every month. The Department will be open until 7 p.m. and staff will be offering tours, pop-up programs, and sneak-peaks. In celebration of William Shakespeares birthday, in April we will be pulling out our copy of Sh...

03/23/2026

We continue our journey through American history on the Road to 250 with David Cusick's "Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations"

David Cusick was a Tuscarora historian and author of what is considered to be the first book about Native Americans written by a Native American. First published in 1826 or 1827, Cusick sought to record histories and oral traditions of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, the Senecas, and the Tuscaroras. Sketches includes descriptions of both human and legendary threats to the Six Nations, such as neighboring peoples like the Shawnees and the Mohegans as well as mythical creatures like the Ko-nea-rau-neh-neh (the Flying Heads) and the Otne-yar-heh (the Stonish Giants).

Little is remembered about Cusick himself. Born around 1780 on a Tuscarora reservation in upstate New York and likely educated in a mission school, we do know that Cusick was a physician and painter who served in the War of 1812. He self-published the first edition of Sketches in 1826 or 1827, and issued a second edition with expanded text and illustrations in 1828. Two more editions would be issued after his death in 1840. Initially panned no doubt in part due to racial biases, and subject to not-undue modern criticism for the overt Judeo-Christian influence in Cusick’s telling of Native beliefs, Sketches is still considered an important, if often overlooked, part of the early Native American bibliography.

02/18/2026

In honor of the United States Semiquincentennial, the Rare Book Department will be exploring items from our vast collection of Americana that reflect events, movements, trends, and voices from the past 250 years. Every month we will highlight one or two objects, from 1776 to 2026, on our social media.

This month's highlight: Birch's Views of Philadelphia

In 1800, William Russell Birch (1755-1834) published "The City of Philadelphia in the State of Pennsylvania, North America, As It Appeared in the Year 1800 : Consisting of Twenty-Eight Plates, more commonly referred to as Birch’s Views of Philadelphia."

The 28 copperplate prints captured the architecture, clothing, commerce, transportation, and life of the (at that time) largest city in the United States. Birch intended his Views to convey Philadelphia’s development to Europeans. A bookseller at 30 Chestnut Street offered sets with the options of adding color and having the plates bound. The original 156 subscribers included diplomats, mayors, governors, and the Vice President of the United States; nearly two thirds of the subscribers were Philadelphians.

In 1959, the Rare Book Department acquired a leather-bound edition of original color engravings and added it to the Americana Collection. In 1982, 1983, and 2000, the Free Library published books containing facsimiles of Birch’s plates alongside contemporary photographs; you can find copies of each of these publications throughout the Library system or make an appointment and see the original on the Third Floor of Parkway Central!

01/16/2026

In honor of the United States Semiquincentennial, the Free Library of Philadelphia Rare Book Department will be exploring items from our vast collection of Americana that reflect events, movements, trends, and voices from the past 250 years. Every month we will highlight one or two objects from 1776 to 2026 right here on our social media.

“Common sense will tell us, that the power which hath endeavored to subdue us, is of all others, the most improper to defend us.”

Published anonymously on January 10, 1776, this pamphlet by Thomas Paine (1737-1809) outlines the moral and political arguments in favor of independence from British rule. It was an overnight sensation; according to Paine, 120,000 copies were sold in the first three months.

It was shared widely, read aloud at taverns, and immediately provoked response and discussion. Part of its appeal—and its success—was due to the clear, approachable, and persuasive prose Paine employed. His style and language were addressed to the common people, and his arguments persuasive and relatable.

The Rare Book Department is fortunate enough to have not one but two copies of the first edition of this important and foundational text. One of those, preserved in its original paper wrappers, is currently on display in our hallway gallery along with other materials that explore the beginnings of the American Revolution. Come visit us on the Third Floor of Parkway Central to see it in person!

Thomas Paine
Common Sense: Addressed to the Inhabitants of America
Philadelphia, 1776
RBD Amer 1776 P165c

11/05/2025

Join us tonight for our November First Wednesday, featuring a curator-led tour of "Or Not To Be: Representations of Death in Special Collections." Tour starts at 5:30 in the Dietrich Gallery!

https://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/event/153148

09/30/2025

Tomorrow's "First Wednesday" is all about "The Raven"
Join us on October 1 from 5-7pm for your chance to see some of our greatest Poe collections up close!

10/29/2024

The Rare Book Department will be closed starting November 4th, 2024, for the installation of a new HVAC system.

This closure will interrupt our usual activities, requiring a pause in our regular tours and research appointments. Response time in providing remote research assistance may be delayed, as many of our collections will be inaccessible during renovations. Nevertheless, we encourage you to contact us and we will do our best to help!

While the Rare Book Department space will not be accessible, we are committed to continuing programs throughout the closure, so stay tuned for future announcements!

Our tentative reopening date is June 2, 2025. In the meantime, we encourage you to keep touch by following us here and on Instagram to see what we’re doing!

The collections of the Free Library of Philadelphia's Rare Book Department are vast and diverse. Ranging in age and scope from cuneiform tablets (the first writing of mankind, c. 3000 BCE) to examples of contemporary fine printing, the collections are representative of the history of written communication from its very beginnings to the present day, from the Western world to the Middle East and beyond. To simplify the array of subjects represented in the Rare Book Department, the collections have been divided here among several broad topics.