Editorial Staff

John C. Van Horne, Project Director and Chief Editor

John Van Horne is Director Emeritus of the Library Company of Philadelphia, which he led from 1985 to 2014. He has written more than a dozen articles and edited or co-edited numerous books, including many volumes of The Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Yale University Press). He is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Matthew R. Halley, Editor, Ornithology in Peale’s Museum

Matthew Halley is an ornithologist and historian who has conducted extensive research on birds in the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East. He is the author of dozens of thought-provoking articles about avian taxonomy and evolution, and the history of American science, and writes a popular blog about the social dimensions of science. Halley is the Assistant Curator of Birds at the Delaware Museum of Nature & Science (Wilmington, DE) and a Research Associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA), where he earned his doctorate in 2021.

Cornelia King, Editor, Imprints in Du Simitière's Museum

Cornelia King retired from the Library Company of Philadelphia in 2022 after a career that focused on cataloguing, reference, and women’s history. She compiled two book-length bibliographies listing pre-1861 works related to American education and American philanthropy (1984). King graduated from Bryn Mawr College before getting masters degrees from Drexel University (in librarianship) and Temple University (in history).

Carol E. Soltis, Editor, Works of Art in Peale’s Museum

Carol Soltis is a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her book, The Art of the Peales: Adaptations and Innovations (Yale University Press), discusses and documents the Museum’s extensive collection of works by this family of artists. While a member of The Peale Family Papers project (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution) she assembled a catalogue raisonné of the work of Rembrandt  Peale. The author of numerous articles and essays on aspects of 18th- and 19th-century American art, she has co-curated major exhibitions on Rembrandt Peale and Thomas Sully. Soltis holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgments

Many individuals and institutions have aided the principals in various ways.

Early on Robert M. Peck, senior fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and an eminent historian of natural history, helped us conceptualize the project.

Dr. Amy R. Meyers, former Director of the Yale Center for British Art, provided insight into the Peales and Charles Alexandre Lesueur.

Dr. Castle McLaughlin, formerly Curator of North American Ethnography at the Peabody Museum of Harvard University, provided valuable information about the artifacts from the Peale Museum that are now at the Peabody, particularly those that came from the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

Dr. Joel J. Orosz, a scholar of the history of museums, has also published on Du Simitière as the Founding Father of American Numismatics and provided information on the American coins in both collections.

For assistance with entries for natural history specimens we thank Pedro Acevedo, Smithsonian Institution (botany); William Cinea, Jardin Botanique des Cayes, Haiti (botany); Ted Daeschler, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia/Drexel University (mammals); Alen Hadzovic, Dept. of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto (mineralogy); Brian Lejeune, mineral curator, Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. (mineralogy); Shahroukh Mistry, California State University Chico (bats); Leslie Moclock, former curator Rice Northwest Museum of Rocks and Minerals, Oregon (mineralogy); Mark Sabaj Perez, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia/Drexel University (fish); Earle Spamer, formerly Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia/Drexel University (mammals); and Mark Strong, Smithsonian Institution (botany).

We thank the staff of the Library Company, particularly Erika Piola, Sarah Weatherwax, Emily Smith. The work of reconstructing Du Simitière's imprint collection in the Library Company was greatly facilitated by the many catalogers who over the years produced the cards in the card catalogs. More recently Holly Phelps created excellent electronic records, especially for broadsides and other items for which the Library Company may have the only surviving copy. The Du Simitière collection is the source for a great many of such items at the Library Company.

Karie Diethorn, Chief Curator of Independence National Historical Park, has shared her extensive knowledge of Peale’s Museum and of the many Museum portraits now in her care displayed in the Second Bank of the United States.

Identification of the Roman coins in Du Simitière's collection was kindly provided by Jane DeRose Evans, Chair and Professor, Art History, Affiliated with Greek and Roman Classics, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.

David R. Brigham, President, and Lee Arnold, formerly Senior Director of the Library & Collections of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, have extended numerous courtesies.

Amy Jacaruso and Christine Van Horne transcribed Peale’s “Walk through the Philada. Museum” manuscript.

John Van Horne's work benefitted from two months in residence at Monticello as a Fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies. He wishes to thank Andrew O'Shaughnessy, Endrina Tay, Susan Stein, Jack Robertson, Anna Berkes, and John Ragosta.

Website Staff and Hosting

Our talented colleagues at the Center for Digital Editing at the University of Virginia expertly designed and built the website. We thank Director Jennifer Stertzer, Project Developer Erica Cavanaugh, and Kathryn Gehred.

The American Philosophical Society, of which both Du Simitière and Peale were members and at one time curators, graciously agreed to host the website within its Center for Digital Scholarship. We thank Patrick Spero, Bayard L. Miller, David Gary, and Valerie-Anne Lutz.