Pleistocene Preserved: The Lost Bone Cave of Port Kennedy

Posted by on Feb 20, 2020 in | Comments Off on Pleistocene Preserved: The Lost Bone Cave of Port Kennedy On October 29, 1895, more than 90 members attended a meeting at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Following the routine business of the publication committee’s report and the announcement of one member’s death, Henry Chapman Mercer (1856–1930) rose to speak about the ongoing exploration of a geological feature known as Irwin’s Cave in Montgomery County. The Philadelphia Inquirer...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Feb 3, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter “You can give humanistic value to almost anything by teaching it historically.” So wrote American philosopher William James in an address he delivered in 1907. Even such disciplines as “geology, economics and mechanics,” he continued, are “humanities when taught with reference to the successive achievements of the geniuses to which these sciences owe their being.” By extension, the features in...
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Pennsylvania Icons: State Treasures Telling the Story of the Commonwealth

Posted by on Apr 19, 2016 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Icons: State Treasures Telling the Story of the Commonwealth   Pennsylvania Icons is a landmark exhibition at The State Museum of Pennsylvania that tells the story of the commonwealth and its people, places, industries, creations and events with more than 400 artifacts and specimens from the museum’s collection. The State Museum contains the largest and most comprehensive Pennsylvania history collection in the world, with a diverse array of objects...
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Artistic Ambitions: Cecilia Beaux in Philadelphia

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Artistic Ambitions: Cecilia Beaux in Philadelphia In 1885, when young Philadelphia artist Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942) sent Les derniers jours d’enfance (1883) to the fifty-sixth annual exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, her goal to become one of the finest and most successful portrait painters in America was only a glimmering ambi­tion. Painted under the tutelage of artist William Sartain, Les derniers jours...
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Joseph Leidy, A Natural Observer

Posted by on Nov 24, 2013 in | Comments Off on Joseph Leidy, A Natural Observer The life of naturalist Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) was one of quiet dedication, but revolutionary achievement. He preferred to allow his research, published findings, and academic distinction to speak for him. When the modest father of paleontology in North America died in Philadelphia on April 30, 1891, local institutions quickly paid tribute. The Academy of Natural Sciences immediately passed a...
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