Through the Eyes of P. W. Costello: Early Scranton Theatre

P. W. Costello and Family Art CollectionNote: This article is the first in a series highlighting the P. W. Costello and Family Art Collection, an online repository for digitized images of original and published artwork by master penman P. W. Costello (1866-1935) and his descendants. This digital Collection was recently donated to the Weinberg Memorial Library by Thomas W. Costello, great-grandson of the artist, and is available to the public online at www.scranton.edu/library/costello.

Scranton, Pennsylvania was at one time a thriving center for live performance – particularly theatre – and was a frequent stop for plays, musicals and vaudeville acts on their way to New York City.  A number of beautiful and often lavish theatres were built throughout the city and housed historic performances by many popular and up-and-coming talents of the day.  Some of these people and events were captured artistically in drawings by P. W. Costello (1866-1935), a talented and highly skilled master penman from the Minooka section of Scranton (shown at left in 1906). Digitized images of these theatre-related drawings are a highlight of the P. W. Costello and Family Art Collection, recently acquired by Weinberg Memorial Library through the generosity of Thomas W. Costello, great-grandson of the artist.

In the late 1890s, P. W. Costello was gaining a reputation for the high-quality engrossings, portraits, and ornamental penmanship he produced from his downtown studio. At the same time, he was a local restauranteur, serving as joint proprietor (with James Fleming) of the Arbor Café on Wyoming Avenue.  Costello used the Café walls as a gallery, displaying his sketches of local and national figures that lined the walls of this restaurant. A number of these drawings depicted actors and actresses who had performed close to the restaurant at such theatres and venues as the Lyceum, the Poli, the Majestic, and the Academy of Music.  Performers captured by Costello who made Scranton appearances included Maude Adams (well-known for her lead role in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, pictured in Costello’s drawing at right), Junius Brutus Booth (father of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth), Maclyn Arbuckle (who, although originally a stage actor, went on to start his own silent film company), Alice Brady (actress and daughter of New York producer William A. Brady) and Robert Edeson (veteran stage and silent film actor who appeared in at least four Scranton stage productions).  Most of these drawings are black and white pen and ink, although there are a few where Costello employed gray or colored shading.

Costello usually based his drawings on photographs, engravings, cabinet cards, or other promotional materials, and these were often paired with an autographed card or letter, which he purchased from a dealer or obtained from another source.  A few autographs are originals, likely acquired by the artist firsthand.  Each drawing manages to expertly convey the unique personality of the particular performer or the character they are portraying.  Costello later went on to create a similar display in the 1920s as co-owner of another Scranton restaurant which featured his work, this time on Adams Avenue, the Oak Café.

In addition to drawing portraits of actors and actresses, Costello also lettered and illustrated theatre advertisements.  One delightful example (shown at left) in the Costello Collection advertises a week-long 1904 production of Cupid and Company, a musical with a book by Scranton newspaperman Tracy Sweet and music by prolific Broadway composer A. Baldwin Sloane.  In addition to Costello’s skillful lettering, the intricate design features Cupid, a jester, a marotte, and other comic elements from the musical, as well as ribbons and acanthus leaves.

One of the interesting and important elements to note about these works by Costello is how they manage to preserve a portion of Scranton’s cultural history that – with few exceptions – has been largely undocumented.  Many of the actors and actresses captured in his drawings (as well as the splendid buildings in which they performed), while well-known in their own time, have largely been forgotten today.  And yet, all these individuals contributed much to Scranton’s arts scene during the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Scranton in turn likely made a significant impact on their careers.  The fact that many of these performers – such as May Irwin (Canadian vaudeville singer and actress), Elsie Janis (American musical comedy soprano) and Ada Rehan (Irish Shakespearean actress) – returned repeatedly to play Scranton, seems to indicate what an important stop the city was on both the national and international touring circuit.

The Weinberg Memorial Library is fortunate to present these digitized images – as well as many other digital reproductions of Costello’s artwork – in our digital collections, and we are pleased to share with the public a rare glimpse of Scranton’s early theatrical history through the eyes of a remarkable artist who lived through it – P. W. Costello.

For more information about the history of theatre in Scranton, check out Nancy McDonald’s book If You Can Play Scranton: A Theatrical History, 1871-2010 – available here at the Weinberg Memorial Library and at several other Pennsylvania libraries.

David Hunisch, Digital Services Assistant
Kristen Yarmey, Digital Services Librarian

15th Annual President’s Business Council Gala Tonight in NYC

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Archival materials for the President’s Business Council honoree video

By collecting, preserving, and making available institutional records of permanent value, the University Archives serves the administration and community of the University of Scranton. This summer, staff from the University’s office of Events & Conference Services visited the Archives in search of materials for the 15th annual President’s Business Council award dinner. This gala, taking place tonight at The Pierre in New York City, recognizes individuals who have achieved excellence in their fields and who have demonstrated extraordinary compassion for others. The President’s Business Council seeks to provide meaningful networking opportunities for alumni and friends, as well as mentoring and career opportunities for current students. In addition, since the inaugural dinner, over $11 million has been generated for the Presidential Scholarship Endowment Fund, which supports full-tuition, merit-based scholarships for talented students who will become leaders of vision and integrity.

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Fr. Bernard McIlhenny, S.J. welcoming several women students and their parents outside of Gunster Memorial Student Center during freshman orientation in 1972. The students were among the first women to enroll in the University’s daytime undergraduate school.

One of this year’s honorees, Rev. Bernard R. McIlhenny, S.J., arrived in Scranton in 1958 to serve as the fourth headmaster of Scranton Preparatory School. Known to many as “Father Mac,” he was appointed dean of admissions at the University in 1966 and, over a 31 year tenure, is credited with admitting more than two-thirds of the University’s living alumni. He is currently dean of admissions emeritus and serves as minister of the Scranton Jesuit Community. University Archives staff gathered materials for a video that will be presented at tonight’s gala. A selection of these materials and other documents on Fr. McIlhenny can be viewed in our digital collections.

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Videographers reviewing materials from the University Archives for an honoree video for the President’s Business Council Dinner.

This year’s second recipient of the President’s Medal is Frank J. Dubas, Jr. ’75. This past May, Frank retired as Deloitte’s global managing partner for Sovereign Financial Institutions (SFI). Over a 42-year career, Frank held a number of client service leadership roles and built a distinguished track record of service to many multinational clients. During his tenure, many Scranton graduates were hired at Deloitte and benefited from Frank’s mentorship. A native of Jessup, Pa., Frank and his wife, Marigrace, reside in New Canaan, Ct., and have three children: Megan, Rob and Paul. Frank’s experiences as a University student were highlighted in an alumni article for the Fall 2015 issue of the Scranton Journal.

To read more news and events about the University Archives and Special Collections, visit www.digitalservices.scranton.edu.

5.06 ~ The University of Scranton’s Day of Giving

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Don’t judge a book by its cover.

More than just books, the Weinberg Memorial Library is a central hub for collaboration, technology, art, research, and even coffee breaks. Scranton students have 24-hour access to this campus hotspot, as well as 24-hour online access to thousands of special collections and digital resources.

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Thanks to Friends like you, the Weinberg Memorial Library is able to grow the number of resources available on campus and online each year. Today, on The University of Scranton’s Day of Giving, consider making your 5.06 gift to the Library.

Buy a Book on 5.06!
Did you know it costs $75 to add one book to the campus collection? With a gift of $75 or more today, a nameplate will be added to a book in your honor.

MAKE MY 5.06 GIFT

12,876 University of Scranton Records Now Available in the Digital Public Library of America

Last week at DPLAFest in Washington, DC, executive director Dan Cohen announced that the Digital Public Library of America had grown in its third year to include more than 13 million records. We’re proud to announce that 12,876 of those records were contributed by the University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library.

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Launched in 2013, DPLA is a digital platform and network that brings together descriptive information for rare and unique digital materials from more than 1,900 libraries, archives, and museums across the country. It’s a portal to the treasures of American cultural heritage, from digitized photographs, films, documents, and objects to born digital ebooks, video, and images. All of these materials are freely available on the web for use by researchers, students, teachers, genealogists, and the general public.

We’ve been building digital collections at the University of Scranton since 2008, and nearly all of our materials are already publicly available on our website at www.scranton.edu/library/digitalcollections (some items are restricted due to copyright, privacy, or donor request). So why participate in DPLA?

DPLA doesn’t host digital materials – they’re all stored and made accessible by contributing institutions like us, so it’s still our job to keep digitizing, describing, preserving, and publishing digital items. What DPLA does is make these materials discoverable and usable in entirely new and exciting ways. Metadata records (descriptive information) that we send to DPLA are aggregated into a stream of open data that can be used by software developers and others to create new tools or visualizations. Two of our favorites are the DPLA Visual Search Prototype and Culture Collage, which offer more visual interfaces for browsing and sorting through search results.

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(We also get a kick out of Term vs. Term, which compares the number of DPLA search results for two phrases. You know, like Scranton vs. Wilkes-Barre. Just saying.)

termvstermPerhaps most importantly, DPLA allows for unified access, which is important both for 1) users who don’t necessarily know what institution will have the records they’re looking for and 2) collections that have been physically fragmented across different institutions.

An example of the former might be a genealogist looking for information about family members from Scranton. Using DPLA, they can find not only relevant materials in our collections (like our yearbooks and Aquinas issues, which are excellent sources for information about our alumni) but they’ll also stumble across photographs, manuscripts, and books from the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, postcards from the Boston Public Library, stereographs and menus from the New York Public Library, and genealogical books from the Library of Congress.

An example of the latter is the Horace G. Healey Collection, an impressive set of 19th century penmanship and calligraphy. Half of the collection is available here on campus in our McHugh Special Collections (as part of our Zaner-Bloser Penmanship Collection), but the other half is at the New York Public Library. In DPLA, images of the artwork are reunited as they are digitized.

Our participation in DPLA has been in the works for almost two years. DPLA is unable to accept metadata records directly from individual libraries – there are just too many potential contributors! – so almost all of its data passes through nodes called Service Hubs. Most service hubs are established at a state or regional level, and Pennsylvania didn’t have one when DPLA first launched. Beginning in August 2014, a group of Pennsylvania cultural heritage institutions got together to discuss how best to collaborate on digital collections in the state. After a year of planning, coordination, and tons of work, the PA Digital Partnership was approved as a DPLA Service Hub in August 2015. On April 13, 2016, data from the PA Digital Partnership went live in DPLA, with 131, 651 records from 19 contributing Pennsylvania institutions.We’re incredibly proud to be part of DPLA and the PA Digital Partnership, and we’re thrilled to see our digital collections be more accessible and discoverable than ever. Congratulations to all our PA Digital colleagues, and happy searching to all!

Celebrate Scranton’s Charter Day with Coloring Pages!

This Saturday is Charter Day, Scranton’s celebration of the 150th anniversary of its incorporation as a city. There will be lots of events going on all day, but here’s another festive option for creative Scrantonians: Charter Day Coloring Pages!

These Coloring Pages were a collaborative effort between the Lackawanna Historical Society, the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, the Leadership Lackawanna #HistoricScranton team, and the University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library (we had way too much fun working on our Local History Coloring Book back in February and couldn’t resist coming back for more!).

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The pages feature images of the city and its past. Leadership Lackawanna’s #HistoricScranton coloring pages, created as part of a current class project with the Historical Architectural Review Board, highlight historic buildings and architecture. The remaining pages hold digitized drawings from local history collections housed at LHS, the Scranton Public Library, and our own University Archives and Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections. (We also included a few images from books digitized by other libraries that are now in the public domain.) Each digitized image is accompanied by a citation describing the image and its source.

LHS will be printing out pages for coloring contests to be held throughout this week, but you can also download a digital copy and print out your own. Happy coloring, and happy birthday Scranton!

Many thanks to all our partners, and extra special thanks to our Weinberg Memorial Library students and staffers who helped with selecting images and making them coloring-friendly!

Color Our Collections: Penmanship

The library, archives, and museum world is abuzz this week with #ColorOurCollections, a weeklong cultural heritage coloring fest dreamed up by the New York Academy of Medicine and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

As coloring fans ourselves, we couldn’t help but toss our hat into the ring. Earlier this week, we shared a University Archives coloring book and a Local History coloring book, but we’ve saved the best for last. Today’s coloring book features some gorgeous penmanship from the Zaner-Bloser, Inc. / Sonya Bloser Monroe Collection and the Horace G. Healey Collection, both preserved in our Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections. Featured at the end are works by Scranton’s own master penman P. W. Costello.

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Penmanship Coloring Book (PDF)

The pages in the book were created using images from the Library’s digital collections, which were digitized from original artwork, publications, and albums.

Please note: We’ve edited the images to increase their “colorability.” In many cases, this process obscured some of the incredible detail and shading in the original work. We encourage you to explore the master scans (and the many, many other items in our collections!) at www.scranton.edu/library/zanerbloser.

We hope you enjoy our book, and we can’t wait to see what colors you bring to our collections!

Color Our Collections: Local History

The library, archives, and museum world is abuzz this week with #ColorOurCollections, a weeklong cultural heritage coloring fest dreamed up by the New York Academy of Medicine and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

As coloring fans ourselves, we couldn’t help but toss our hat into the ring. We’ve already shared a University Archives coloring book this week, but today we turn our gaze outward to our beloved city of Scranton.

Local History Coloring Book

Local History Coloring Book (PDF)

All of the pages in the book were created using images from the Library’s digital collections, most of which were digitized from original drawings, photographs, and publications from our University Archives and Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections.

We hope you enjoy our book, and we can’t wait to see what colors you bring to our collections!

Color Our Collections: University of Scranton Archives

The library, archives, and museum world is abuzz this week with #ColorOurCollections, a weeklong cultural heritage coloring fest dreamed up by the New York Academy of Medicine and the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

As coloring fans ourselves, we couldn’t help but toss our hat into the ring. We have a few small coloring books headed your way this week, and here’s the first!

University Archives Coloring Book

University of Scranton University Archives Coloring Book (PDF)

All of the pages in the book were created using images from the Library’s digital collections, most of which were digitized from original drawings, photographs, and publications from our University Archives.

We hope you enjoy our book, and we can’t wait to see what colors you bring to our collections!

Happy Birthday, Scranton: Kickoff to the 150th Anniversary Celebration

Scranton150Tomorrow morning at 9:15 am, the City of Scranton will kick off its year-long Sesquicentennial Anniversary Celebration. Scranton was incorporated as a city on April 23, 1866, so next spring (April 23, 2016) will be the city’s 150th birthday.

While the University of Scranton itself wasn’t around back at the very beginning (founded in 1888, we just celebrated our 125th anniversary in 2013-2014), we’re proud of the close ‘town and gown’ relationship we’ve had with the city of Scranton throughout our shared history.

Here at the Weinberg Memorial Library, we’re looking forward to joining in the fun throughout the anniversary year. Beginning in May, each month of the City celebration will highlight a decade (or two) in the city’s history, and here on our Library blog we’ll be highlighting how the University grew alongside the city during that time.

Our University Archives and Helen Gallagher McHugh Special Collections include many rare and unique resources related to the history of the City of Scranton, its residents, and its major institutions.  For example, the Library holds the records of the International Correspondence Schools of Scranton – and in the fall, we’ll be exhibiting materials from this collection in celebration of the 125th anniversary of ICS (now known as Penn Foster), which was founded in 1891.

We’ve been working on digitizing archival and special collections materials and making them publicly available for searching and browsing in our digital collections, but there’s always more to do. We’re currently tossing around new ideas for increasing public, digital access to local history materials with some of our friends on campus (the History and Communication Departments, Royals’ Historical Society, Hope Horn Gallery, and Community Relations) and in the community (the Lackawanna Historical Society, the Everhart Museum, Scranton Public Library/Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives, and Marywood University). More to come on this as our plans develop!

At the state level, we’re collaborating with other academic and public libraries on a broad initiative to establish a Pennsylvania service hub for the Digital Public Library of America, which will make Pennsylvania history and cultural heritage more accessible and discoverable to students, teachers, genealogists, historians, scholars, and others in our communities and around the world.

So happy birthday, Scranton! Let’s get this party started.