The Collation

Research and Exploration at the Folger

Q & A: Ashley Buchanan, Associate Director for Fellowships, Folger Institute

January 18, 2022 | By The Collation

The Folger Institute is pleased to introduce Dr. Ashley Buchanan, our new Associate Director for Fellowships. Dr. Buchanan received her Ph.D. in early modern history in 2018 from the University of South Florida and comes to the Folger with experience as the study abroad coordinator at Mercer University and as a postdoctoral fellow in the Plant Humanities Initiative at Dumbarton Oaks.… Continue Reading

George Goodwin, neo-Latin poet, identified as George Goodwin, rector of Moreton, Essex

January 11, 2022 | By Erin Blake

Today’s Collation post is short and sweet, and courtesy of Heather Wolfe, the Folger’s Curator of Manuscripts. Heather is currently on sabbatical in the UK, having been awarded the 2021–22 Munby Fellowship at Cambridge University Library, but she still occasionally sends gems back to Folger catalogers. This particular gem, and permission to blog about it, arrived just in the nick of time: the post I’d planned to publish today turned out to require material that’s inaccessible during the Folger’s multi-year renovation.… Continue Reading

Trappings of the stage

January 4, 2022 | By Rachel B. Dankert

Thanks to those who registered your guesses on our most recent Crocodile Mystery. All of the guesses gazed upward, when the answer actually lay underfoot. While these strange designs resemble theatrical lighting effects, they are, in fact, designs for stage trap doors. R.B. [Bayley] was not satisfied with the status quo. Here, we see a dissatisfied theater-worker write to theater impresario and actor Robert William Elliston to argue his perspective.… Continue Reading
January 2022 croc mystery image

Postcards in the (home) archive: 1939

December 21, 2021 | By Guest Author

a guest post by Stephen Grant Printed on picture side: THE FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C. 39686 Printed on address side: Published by B. S. Reynolds Co., Washington, D.C. 39686 THE FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY The Folger Library was bequeathed to the Trustees of Amherst College by Henry Clay Folger of the Amherst class of 1879, and has a $10,000,000 endowment fund.… Continue Reading

Recipe Books, Plague Cures and the Circulation of Information

December 14, 2021 | By Guest Author

a guest post by Yann Ryan As well as its terrible consequences for health and mortality, plague in early modern England had a major impact on the communication and circulation of information. Movement was restricted, towns with suspected cases were put on severe lockdowns, and ships from places known to be ‘hot’ with the plague were held in ports for up to forty days (quarantined).… Continue Reading