Here is a recently cataloged “Skellig list” broadside from the city of Cork, Ireland. A Skellig (or Skillig) list is a poem pairing up local bachelors and unmarried women, giving the subjects false names; but they were easily identifiable to local residents, given their age and physical descriptions (flattering or insulting), how long they have…
Wesley’s War Tableaux
While cataloging American Civil War broadsides, I found this playbill advertising Wesley’s War Tableaux, to be presented in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the Lyceum Hall from February 23-25 [1863]. Moving panoramas were large painted scenes on rolls of canvas, framed by a proscenium to hide the mechanism; they were unwound from one roll to another, to…