University Of Pennsylvania

By the time photography was invented in the 1830s, the University of Pennsylvania, America's first university, was nearly a century old. University of Pennsylvania, a unique photographic collection, focuses on the school's history at its present campus in West Philadelphia beginning shortly after the end of the Civil War and provides images of more than a century of student life inside and outside the classroom. In every category, from campus landmarks to the student body to the traditions that bind the community together, these photographs demonstrate the close connections between Penn's present and its past. They also reveal historical aspects of the Penn experience that have since vanished.

Totaling approximately 40,000 objects, the University Museum's ethnographic holdings represent native peoples from ten North American culture areas—the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, California, Plateau, Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, Northeast, and the Southeast. This guide highlights the strength of the collections and demonstrates how objects are tied to history and people living within different cultural and social contexts. It also underscores that objects have different multiple meanings. Some objects illustrate intertribal relations; others best reflect collecting attitudes at the turn of the century when much of the Museum's collections was acquired. Visitors and off-site readers will learn about such related archival resources as documentation and photographs, past and present Museum exhibitions, current research, repatriation, and contemporary collections development.

From the time of its establishment in the eighteenth century until late in the nineteenth century, the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine was the most respected medical institution in the United States. Today it is among the leaders in medical education in the U.S. It continues to play a crucial role in the development of medical education, the practice of medicine, and medical research in America. Innovation and Tradition at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: An Anecdotal Journey presents a thoroughly researched, readable history of this important institution. Tracing its growth from a couple of courses at the College of Philadelphia to its 225th anniversary in 1990, the authors highlight the truly remarkable contributions to science and medicine made by members of the school's distinguished faculty. including Benjamin Rush, Caspar Wistar, Joseph Leidy, Simon Flexner, lsador Ravdin, and Britton Chance.

The 17 figurines published here are but a small sample of the objects excavated more than 100 years ago at the Bronze Age necropolis at the site of Ayia Paraskevi in Cyprus. Vassos Karageorghis introduces the volume with an insightful essay on the significance of the site and one of its early excavators, Max Ohnefalsch-Richter. Terence Brennan contributes information on the history of the Museum's acquisition of these pieces based on a 12-year correspondence between Sara Yorke Stevenson, one of the Museum's early founders, and Ohnefalsch-Richter. The volume contains a detailed catalogue of the 17 figurines, including bibliography and comparanda.

The University Museum has been involved in Mesoamerican archaeology for more than a century. Its collections include material from northern Mexico to Costa Rica and represent all of the major cultures of the region. This guide allows the visitor to gain on-site understanding and the off-site reader to grasp how the Museum's collections fit into current archaeological theory. The text underscores some of the pan-Mesoamerican aspects of pre-Columbian peoples and the way each group interpreted underlying similarities to create individual customs and beliefs, burials and caches, beauty and adornment. The guide focuses on the unique aspects of the collection, much of it stemming from the Museum's own excavations, including eight large carved limestone monuments from its historic early excavations at Piedras Negras, Guatemala (1931-39) and Caracol, Belize (1951-53), the only group of original Maya monuments on display in an American museum. The inscriptions on these monuments are reproduced in detail, accompanied by translations and explanations drawing on the latest epigraphic research. Also included are important pieces from the Guatemala highlands; figurines and carvings collected in the early nineteenth century by the U.S. ambassador to Mexico; as well as significant material from Central America, including the famous carved alabaster vases from the Uloa Valley in Honduras.

The University of Pennsylvania Band, among the first collegiate marching bands in the country, was founded in 1897. Ever since, it has been a cornerstone of student life on campus, serving as a guardian of musical traditions and all things red and blue. The University of Pennsylvania Band is a distinctive photographic collection tracing the evolution of the student-led organization from its start as the prototype for the modern collegiate marching band, through the dramatic social changes during the middle of the 20th century, to the comedic Ivy Leaguestyle "scramble" band it became towards the end of its first 100 years. By following the evolution of the band, this pictorial collection traces the changes that occurred within the student body over the decades, including times of war and social inequality.