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Lecture Tour of America 1882

Writing and Research on Oscar Wilde

Philadelphia

Pennsylvania


Horticultural Hall

Tuesday, January 17, 1882


The English Renaissance

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‍Verification

‍Newspaper report

‍The Times (Philadelphia), Jan 18, 1882, 2

‍

‍Related:

‍Our Philadelphia, Elizabeth Robins Pennell. 

‍J. B. Lippincott, 1914, 347.

Horticultural Hall, 250 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA (1881)--Oscar Wilde lecture
Horticultural Hall, 250 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA

Venue

Horticultural Hall

250 South Broad Street, (below Locust), Philadelphia, PA


Built: 1881 (Addison Hutton)

Opened: January 5, 1882, 12 days before Wilde's lecture

Destroyed (fire): May 27, 1893


It replaced: Samuel Sloan's (original) Horticultural Hall on the same site (July 1867-January 31, 1881, fire)

It was replaced by: (New) Horticultural Hall (Frank Miles Day) on the same site (b. 1894-96, demolished 1917)


Credit:

Many thanks and appreciation to Mark Samuels Lasner (Senior Research Fellow at the University of Delaware Library) for his work in identifying this location, and for confirming the building chronology of the various Horticultural Halls (see feature below).

Horticultural Halls in Philadelphia

The first three were on the same site on Broad Street.

The fourth was part of the Centennial Exhibition in Fairmount Park.

Horticultural Hall, 250 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA (1867)
Horticultural Hall, 250 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA (1881)--Oscar Wilde lecture

The First Horticultural Hall

250 South Broad St. | 1867-1881

(Samuel Sloan)

The Second Horticultural Hall

250 South Broad St. | 1881-93

(Addison Hutton)

WILDE LECTURED HERE

Horticultural Hall, 250 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA (1896)
Horticultural Hall, Fairmount Park (1875-1955)

The Third Horticultural Hall

250 South Broad St. |1896-1917

(Frank Miles Day)

Horticultural Hall in Fairmount Park (1875-1955)

Part of the Centennial Exhibition

(Hermann J. Schwarzmann)

The Aldine Hotel, 1910-1922 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA, Oscar Wilde

Accommodation

The Aldine Hotel

1910-1922 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA


Original building built: 1848-1851 as the home of Dr. James Rush

Rebuilt: 1875—77 as a luxury hotel (Yarnall and Cooper) for J.B. Lippincott

Opened: 1877

Demolished: mid 1920s

Expanded: 1895 (Addison Hutton); the taller expansion section to the right is extant


Image:

Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia

Oscar Wilde Signature, Philadelphia 1882

Ephemera

Copy of Wilde’s Poems (1881) signed in Philadelphia, January 1882.


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