Posts Tagged ‘Library Company of Philadelphia’
“We are not to judge what is possible and what is not, according to what is credible and incredible to our apprehension”*…
Jason Rhode on the signature work of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne…
… In 1571, a skeptical nobleman retires to his tower. He dictates 107 short pieces over 20 years. He calls them “essais” (“attempt,” in French). The “Essays” bear titles like “Of Drunkenness.”
They are informal, conversational. Montaigne begins on-topic, but his mind wanders. You’ll be reading an essay about rapid speech, but he’ll veer off to tell us “I am not a very collected and deliberate person” or he’ll hit you with the dankest shit ever about how to consider death.
His learning is so great, his insights so keen, that again and again he shocks us: What if the indigenous people of the Americas are superior to Europeans? What if culture’s relative; are our values real? What if we’re wrong about God? What if learning doesn’t matter that much? And over and over again, What do I know? A twist, then another. This is a mind forever in the process of finding itself…
If he had just been a clever 16th-century chronicler, that would’ve been enough. If he had merely written frankly and fearlessly, that would have been enough. If he had just invented the essay, that would have been enough.
But this book is something more: the “Essays” are the imprinting of a consciousness in a book, as no consciousness has ever been so imprinted. I’ll be plain: this work contains a mortal soul. It forever bears the real essence of its maker—like Sauron’s ring, but for a great and good man…
Eminently worth reading in full (before you turn Essays itself): “Essays, by Michel de Montaigne, (1570-1592)” from @iamthemaster.
* Michel de Montaigne
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As we essay, we might recall that it was on this date in 1732 that the Library Company of Philadelphia signed a contract with its first librarian. Founded by Benjamin Franklin and friends in November 1731, the library enrolled members for a fee of forty shillings but had to wait for books to arrive from England before beginning full operation.
Many subscription libraries—founded to benefit academies, colleges, and other groups—were established from the late seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The Library Company of Philadelphia grew out of the needs of the Leather Apron Club, also known as the “Junto,” of which Franklin was a member. In addition to exchanging business information, these merchants discussed politics and natural philosophy, contributing to their requirements for books to satisfy their widespread interests. Volumes were purchased with the annual contributions of shareholders, building a more comprehensive library than any individual could afford.
Directors of the Library Company made their holdings available to the first Continental Congress when it convened in Philadelphia in September 1774. After independence, the third session of the new Federal Congress convened in Philadelphia in January 1791, and the Library Company directors again tendered use of their facility. In essence, the Library Company served as the de facto Library of Congress until 1800 when the fledgling legislature moved to its permanent Washington, D.C., location and the Library of Congress was founded.
Today, the Library Company of Philadelphia is a research center and museum.
“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life”*…
From The Great Train Robbery, 1903
In 1888, Thomas Edison wrote that “I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion.” The system was comprised of the Kinetograph, a motion picture camera, and a Kinetoscope, a motion picture viewer, and was mostly created by Edison’s assistant, William Kennedy Laurie Dickson. (The system was likely inspired by the zoopraxiscope created by photographer—and murderer!—Eadweard Muybridge to show off his motion photographs.) Early films from the Edison Manufacturing Co. showed off “actualities”: celebrities, news, disasters, and expositions. But later, the company switched to creating narrative films more in line with what we watch at the movies today…
These earliest films, often a minute or two in length, could be purchased for $6.60 (about $169 in today’s currency). But readers can see a selection of Edison’s early essays, streamed for free, at “10 Early Films Made by Edison’s Movie Company.”
* Federico Fellini
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As search for the concession stand, we might recall that it was on this date in 1732 that Louis Timothee (sometimes rendered “Lewis Timothy”) became the first salaried librarian in the American Colonies. A printer and protégé of Benjamin Franklin’s, Timothee served as the part-time librarian for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of Franklin’s first philanthropic projects, from its founding on July 1, 1731. As the project took hold, Timothee’s position was elevated to a full-time, paid position.
The Library Company of Phildelphia
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