Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 1278

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

0.2 linear feet (1 box)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

John Bidwell Rosenbach Lecture typescripts, 1987-1988, Ms. Coll. 1278, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1987-1988 (inclusive)

Creator:

Bidwell, John

Form:

Lectures and Lecture notes

Abstract:

John Bidwell, currently the supervisor and Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at the Morgan Library, was the Rosenbach Fellow and Lecturer in 1988. This collection contains the typescript for John Bidwell's 1988 Rosenbach Lecture, titled "Papermaking in the Delaware Valley at the end of the 18th & the beginning of the 19th century."

The Rosenbach Lectures is an ongoing series of annual three-part lectures corresponding to the Rosenbach Fellowship in Bibliography. This fellowship was established by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in 1928 and honors a gift to the University from A.S.W. Rosenbach, one of America's most prominent book dealers and collectors. This fellowship is intended to further scholarship and scholarly publication in bibliography and book history. The Rosenbach Lectures are the longest continuing series of bibliographical lectureships in the United States, beginning in 1931 and continuing to the present.

John Bidwell, born in 1949, was the Rosenbach Fellow in 1988, which resulted in his lectures on the topic of papermaking in the Delaware Valley at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. Since 1999, Bidwell has served as supervisor and Astor Curator of Printed Books and Bindings at the Morgan Library. He previously served as the Curator of Graphic Arts in the Princeton University Library and has written extensively on the history of papermaking in England and America.

This collection contains a photocopied typescript for John Bidwell's 1988 Rosenbach Lecture, titled "Papermaking in the Delaware Valley at the end of the 18th & the beginning of the 19th century." In this collection, the typescript is physically divided into files corresponding to the four topics of the lecture: labor, management, capital, and technology. All of the typescripts are edited, but there are two copies of "Management: The Role of the Foreman," one of which contains notes in a different hand than the other edits. Despite the dates on the segments of the lectures, the segments are arranged in the order that it is believed that they were given.