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Jailhouse Law — Philadelphia 1801

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•  Scarce: Only the second such collection of Pennsylvanian criminal laws and legislation, following Zachariah Poulson’s first of 1794. The unspecified prison for which Budd & Bartram printed this work was almost certainly the Walnut Street Prison, in operation from 1773 through 1838 and one of the earliest American penitentiaries as well as a groundbreaking experiment in humanitarian incarceration. At the time of this volume’s publication, the prison reform movement was flourishing in Philadelphia.

Many institutions report microform holdings, but very few hold actual copies.

•  Sabin 59986; Shaw & Shoemaker 1114. Contemporary-style quarter tan cloth over blue paper-covered sides, spine with printed paper label. Paper embrittled and somewhat fragile; pages age-toned and foxed.

We Are in Production!

Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of American Manufactures.

•  Founded to "promote the manufacturing interest of our country" in 1787, the Society sent out this communication giving its constitution and list of officers with a report on the present state of manufacturing in the United States. This includes a discussion of growth in domestic raw materials and manufactures—with some detail as to items whose production has increased—and reports decline in the need for imported materials and manufactured goods. The whole ends on a note at once self-congratulatory and restrained: Things are, happily, "in most respects very considerably better than . . . at the first establishment of the Society."

Tench Coxe was the publishing President, Peter A. Browne, the Secretary.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7024; Sabin 60367. Publisher's plain blue wrappers, soiled. Dog-earing, with a few chipped corners; some soiling and foxing.

Local Sericulture

Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Culture of theMulberry, and the Raising of Silk Worms.

•  No sooner had this sericulture society founded itself with a constitution than it published a handbook for the would-be worm raiser. The instructions on cultivation of both trees and worms are clear and extensive. The society also here announces prizes ("premiums") for the greatest quantity of thread made from silk raised in Pennsylvania; for "the greatest quantity of good cocoons, raised within this state"; and "for the largest number of the best white mulberry trees, raised within twelve miles of this city." There were also prizes for lesser quantities in those same categories.

•  Shoemaker 34706. Recent quarter off-white cloth, old style, with plain blue-green paper sides. Five-digit number stamped on title-page. Light dust-soiling. A very good copy.

Hannah DutifullyCopied Her Lessons

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•  Handwriting practice, accomplished in a blank book from “Leary & Co.'s Cheap Book Store” of Philadelphia, which is depicted in a wood engraving on the front wrapper. In addition to full-page repetitions of maxims such as “Never suffer the poor to ask charity in vain at your door,” Miss Pennypacker also inscribed such poems as “Napoleon Dying,” “Sonnet on the Entrance of the Woods,” and “Weep Not for the Dead,” along with several brief prose pieces (at a teacher or parent's behest: two pages are marked “Please copy a piece of prose” or similar). Most of the entries are in cursive script, buta few are calligraphic.

•  Publisher's printed paper wrappers, front cover with inked ownership inscription dated 1850, wrapper edges with blue ink smudges, spine with traces of now-absent paper reinforcement. Pages age-toned, some with blue ink smudges at edges, otherwise clean.  (29074)

This Philadelphia Bank's Articles of Association . . .

•  Sole edition and very rare. The bank was capitalized with $1,000,000, aimed at making loans to merchants and farmers, and drew its original 16 directors from the powers that were in Philadelphia at that time, both Christian and Jewish.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 4846. Sewn as issued. Waterstaining to lower margin of most pages; mildew damage to same areas.

. . . and Its Incorporation Philadelphia [National] Bank.  Pennsylvania.  Laws, statutes, etc. An act to incorporate the Philadelphia Bank. Philadelphia: Pr. by W. W. Woodward, 1804. 8vo. 21, [1 (blank)] pp.
$800.00

•  The legislature enables the Bank to come into existence and prohibits conflicts of interest by barring sitting governors and legislators from serving on its board of directors. This act of incorporation seems to be as rare as the Bank's Articles of Association.

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 7007. Original light boards covered with marbled paper. Back cover and two leaves gnawed by a rodent, with loss of paper.

For more COMMERCE / TRADE /
        FINANCE / ECONOMICS,  click here.

FRIEND-ly Memorials Male & Female

•  Collection of biographies of devout Quakers, with a special emphasis on their virtues, sufferings, and deaths, published for the edification of the faithful. This work gives an interesting insight into Quaker piety—its simplicity, high moral tone, and reliance on inward inspiration.
•  Shoemaker 5412; Sabin 47736. Contemporary treed calf, worn around the edges, joints cracked and front cover very loose. Spine worn, with chipped red morocco title label. Pp. 91–92 chipped on lower corner; some foxing. Now housed in a simple acid-free phase box (label shown in horizontal image above).

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      FRIENDS/QUAKERS — click here.

The Father of “The Father of American Surgery”
Nails Down a Land Deal

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•  Edmund Physick was the father of Philip Syng Physick, who is acknowledged as the “Father of American Surgery.” Edmund was the “Keeper of the Great Seal” for the Penn family, which meant he managed the Penn properties and interests in the colonies. In fact, at one point during the Revolution Edmund negotiated a treaty between British General Howe and George Washington that halted fighting on one of the Penn family properties outside of Philadelphia. Here he issues a receipt to Thomas Shields for £24 15s “curr[e]nt money of Pennsylvania in lieu of fifteen pounds sterling for 300 acres of land on both sides of Corking Creek & adjoining land applied for by Lancelot Johnson in North[umberlan]d County to be Surveyed to him by Warr[an]t.”

Provenance: With pencilled dealer's code of Sessler's on the verso; in the collection of Philadelphia collector Robert R. Dearden, Jr.

•  Very good condition. Written in a very clear hand. With pencilled dealer's code on the verso.  (29105)

PhiladelphiaPoets, Playwrights, & Publishers BEWARE

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•  A well-done poetic skewering of prominent literary Philadelphians (poets, playwrights, journalists, periodical editors and publishers) of the mid–19th century as well as fulmination on some practices and events. Uncommon, as one would expect, asprivately printed.

•  Sabin 62915.   Publisher's plain dark gray boards, front cover with “Parnass” etched in an early hand; rubbed overall with front joint carefully repaired, spine and edges subtly restored with toned repair tissue. Ex-library, spine with remnants of paper shelving label, front pastedown with faint traces of now-absent bookplate, pencilled annotation along inner margin of first text page. Front pastedown with early pencilled note regarding contents. Light foxing, a bit of soiling.  (24837)

Philadelphia's “Mad Men”— 1956!

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• “The Poor Richard Club is one of America's oldest and largest advertising organizations,” as stated by this membership publication on p. 8. Illustrated with a photograph of the Club's handsome building, then located at 1319 Locust Street, Philadelphia, this offering includes a typewritten letter on Club stationery, laid in.

The sections offering the house rules, by-laws, committee-lists, and so forth are expectably full of period flavor (the card room closes at midnight, no ifs, ands, or buts); but the simple listing of members and their business affiliations is suggestive as well.

The Club's published history seems to be readily available online; evocative ephemera like this, Not.

•  Original embossed ecru wrappers, light age-toning; edges lightly discolored. One member's name is checked in the roster, in ink; otherwise clean and very good.  (10346)

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