Frontispiece to Edwin Freedley's Philadelphia and Its Manufactures: A Handbook (Philadelphia: E. Young, 1867).
Specializing in images depicting the city of Philadelphia and works by Philadelphia artists, the Library Company's graphics collection contains numerous lithographic prints of Philadelphia scenes published by Philadelphia firms in the early years of commercial lithography. Many of these prints are described by Nicholas B. Wainwright in his book Philadelphia in the Romantic Age of Lithography: An illustrated history of early lithography in Philadelphia with a descriptive list of Philadelphia scenes made by Philadelphia lithographers before 1866 (Philadelphia: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1958), and are known collectively as the "Wainwright Collection."
The Library Company currently holds 285 of the 480 views described in Wainwright's work. As the result of a collaborative project with the imaging firm of Access Imagery (now Backstage Library Works), all of these lithographs are now described on our on-line catalog WolfPAC with links to digital images of the work. To locate all of the Wainwright records in WolfPAC search the "graphics collection" for "Wainwright" in the URL field. These records can also be searched in the catalog by title, lithographer (i.e. author), and subject. In addition, the images are available in our digital collections catalog ImPAC with an image viewer that enables magnification. To locate the Wainwright images in ImPAC, search the Print & Photograph collection for "Wainwright." Alternatively, if you know the Wainwright number, you can select a link below to go directly to the digital image.
Please note that all digital images available on this site are for reference use only. For information about securing high quality reproductions of these images and publication permission go to our Rights and Reproductions page.