The Rosenbach’s Collections Department is responsible for stewarding the physical wellbeing of collections objects, meaning that we regularly work with conservators, who perform repair treatments on our objects to guarantee their safety for years to come.  In this episode, join Associate Curator Dr. Alexander L. Ames and Senior Book Conservator Richard Homer at the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts (CCAHA) in Philadelphia, for a conversation about the importance of collaboration between curators, librarians, and conservators to protect and preserve the physical integrity of cultural artifacts.  They will highlight a Rosenbach collections object currently undergoing conservation treatment at CCAHA: an eighteenth-century English translation of the Qur’an that had been owned by members of the Jewish-American Gratz family.  At the end of the episode, Richard will share helpful tips for how you can take good care of your own collections of books and historic documents.

The collections of the Rosenbach Museum & Library are dynamic, growing, and changing to meet the needs of the present and the future.  Join Rosenbach Curator & Senior Director of Collections Judith M. Guston, Librarian Elizabeth E. Fuller, and Associate Curator Dr. Alexander L. Ames in the reading room of the Rosenbach for a conversation about the strategies they employ to identify and acquire objects for the Rosenbach’s holdings, and a discussion of some newly acquired objects.

Following the crowning of the Rosenbach Test Kitchen winner, Associate Curator and host of The Rosenbach Podcast Dr. Alexander L. Ames sits down with acclaimed foodways scholar Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson for a conversation about how historians and other scholars make use of libraries, archives, museum collections, and other primary sources in their research.  Williams-Forson takes listeners behind the scenes into the American historian’s work and shares insights from her books, including Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America (UNC Press 2022), Taking Food Public: Redefining Food in a Changing World (Routledge 2013), and the award-winning Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (UNC Press 2006).  Doctors Ames and Williams-Forson discuss the importance of libraries, museums, and archives to modern-day American civic life, and the value of spending time with primary sources like those housed at the Rosenbach Museum & Library today. This episode is the perfect after-dinner treat, following up on key issues raised in Rosenbach Test Kitchen.

The cooking is done, the dishes are prepped, the table is set, and Rosenbach Test Kitchen judges are ready to critique the submissions!  Grab your seat at the dining room table with Rosenbach Curator and Senior Director of Collections Judy Guston and Librarian Elizabeth Fuller, as they critique dishes inspired by Rosenbach collections items that contestants prepared in the previous episode. The judges critique dishes cooked by Director Kelsey Scouten Bates, Registrar Jobi Zink, and Associate Curator Alex Ames in five categories: flavor, texture, presentation, authenticity, and historical interest, before crowning one special winner of Rosenbach Test Kitchen.  What dish will it be?  Tune in for the answer!

(Note: This episode was recorded live around Registrar Jobi Zink’s dining room table, with the noise of a buzzing, busy kitchen in the background.  Thank you, Jobi, for letting us take over your kitchen and dining room for the podcast!)

In the first episode of Rosenbach Test Kitchen, join Associate Curator and host of The Rosenbach Podcast Dr. Alexander L. Ames in the reading room of the Rosenbach with Director Kelsey Scouten Bates, Curator and Senior Director of Collections Judy Guston, Librarian Elizabeth Fuller, and Registrar Jobi Zink for some research into American history, as the team locates historic dishes represented in our rare books and manuscripts.  Judy and Elizabeth offer perspectives on the richness of the Rosenbach’s holdings in American history before Kelsey, Jobi, and Alex dive into the objects that inspired their dishes of choice for the Rosenbach Test Kitchen competition: a letter about parmesan cheese written by Thomas Jefferson and a travel journal kept by Englishman James Edward Moxon as he journeyed across the United States in the 1800s.

Stress and excitement are both running high in the kitchen, as Rosenbach Test Kitchen competitors Kelsey Scouten Bates, Jobi Zink, and Alex Ames cook up their historic dishes for presentation to the Test Kitchen judges.  Dishes include a vegetable soup, turkey with oyster sauce, asparagus with egg, macaroni with cheese, a peach julep, ginger beer, and lemon ice cream for dessert.  Grab your apron and learn from each of the contestants about how they adapted historic recipes for this modern dinner party.  Then, test out some of the recipes yourself!

(Note: This episode was recorded live in Registrar Jobi Zink’s kitchen, with all the background noise you might expect.  Thank you, Jobi, for letting us take over your kitchen for the podcast!)

Books are not just literary and historical artifacts; they can also be visual artworks.  In this episode of The Rosenbach Podcast, renowned Philadelphia-based pop-up book artist Colette Fu introduces us to her art form and explains what inspires her to explore cross-cultural interactions by means of the pop-up book.

Museum and library exhibitions and collections have long been sources of public dialogue.  Dr. Rosenbach and his brother and business partner Philip Rosenbach participated in one of the most ambitious exhibitions focused on rare books and documents in American history: the Freedom Train project of the 1940’s, launched shortly after the end of the Second World War.  The spirited public debate around equity, access, and narratives of American history inspired by the Freedom Train hold important insights for Americans today as we continue to consider how best to represent the origins and development of the nation.  This episode of The Rosenbach Podcast shares the story of the Freedom Train and points listeners in the direction of other Rosenbach resources about telling inclusive stories from history.

Libraries, archives, museums, and the collections they contain are essential for the healthy functioning of democratic societies.  Using the story of Dr. Rosenbach’s charity book auction described in Episode 11 as a starting point, this episode of The Rosenbach Podcast features a conversation with Richard Ovenden, O.B.E., Bodley’s Librarian at the University of Oxford.  Our conversation explores cultural memory, information policy, and where our world may be headed with access to reliable information under threat.  Mr. Ovenden discusses his new book, Burning the Books: A History of the Deliberate Destruction of Knowledge (Harvard University Press, 2020), and what lessons history has to teach us about when libraries and archives come under attack.

As the Jewish people faced persecution under the Nazi regime, Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach, a prominent member of the Jewish American community, sprang into action to raise funds for refugees by means of a charity book auction held in New York.  This episode of The Rosenbach Podcast reveals how Dr. Rosenbach activated his social and civic networks for a cause he believed in—and which other luminous figures in the American book world of the time lent their support.