The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts: An Ideal and a Symbol

Posted by Jeanette Toohey on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts: An Ideal and a Symbol By 1805, the year the Pennsylvania Acad­emy of the Fine Arts was founded, Phila­delphia had achieved a large measure of political, social and economic stability. It had been the nation’s capital and contin­ued to thrive as a center of banking and commerce. The largest city in the United States at the opening of the nineteenth century, it was arguably the center of culture, with Boston its...
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A Salute to the Bicentennial of the Keystone State

Posted by Philip Klein on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Salute to the Bicentennial of the Keystone State The current Bicentennial celebration commemorates not the birth of the United States, but the proclama­tion of thirteen British-American colonies that were “free and independent states” as of July 4, 17.76. When they formed a loose compact in 1761, their articles of confederation declared that “each state retains its sover­eignty, freedom and independence.” The...
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Leader of the Band

Posted by Eric Smith on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Leader of the Band During a visit to Philadelphia in 1818, Englishman Robert Wahn discovered and wrote in his travel diary about a remarkably talented black musician. And by putting pen to paper, he unwittingly recorded for posterity the existence of an early nineteenth­-century musician, composer, and conductor. “The Leader of the band,” wrote Wahn, “is a descendant of Africa [who] possesses a...
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