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This print shows two sculling barges on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. Each barge has a crew of eight and a coxswain. In the background are Peter's Island and the Columbia Railroad Bridge. A boat house is on the shore of the island and a train is seen exiting the covered bridge. The Columbia Railroad Bridge, one of the oldest railroad bridges in the United States, was completed in 1834 after being commissioned by the state legislature for the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad. The bridge spanned the Schuylkill River below Belmont Mansion in Fairmount Park. This print was used as ...

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784-1817) was born Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in Lausanne, Switzerland. His accounts of his travels in the Middle East in the early 19th century are among the earliest modern European descriptions of Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan. Upon finishing university studies in Switzerland, he went to England to enroll in Cambridge University, where he studied Arabic and Islam in order to prepare himself for a career as an explorer-adventurer. As his acquaintance Muhammad 'Ali Basha, ruler of Egypt, said of his adventurism, he possessed the "travelling madness." Burc...

Josie Billie was a member of the Florida Seminole people who lived his entire life on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in Hendry County, Florida. Born December 12, 1887, Josie Billie was the son of Connie Pajo, also known to Floridians as Billie Cornpatch, the first Indian to receive a Western education in Florida. A Seminole medicine man and long-time public spokesman for the Florida Seminoles, Billie later continued his medical work as an herbalist and became a Baptist minister. He was a frequent participant in the Florida Folk Festival, which was founded in 1953 and is one of the oldest f...

ʻAbd al-Rahman Khan (1844-1901) ruled Afghanistan from 1880 to 1901. He was a grandson of Dost Mohammad Khan (ruled 1826-39 and 1845-63), the founder of the Barakzai dynasty of Afghanistan after the fall of the Durranis and the end of the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. After long years in exile in Central Asia, Rahman came to power in Afghanistan with the support of the British, by whom he was later patronized financially, politically, and militarily. The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan is a two-volume work, edited and translated from the original Persian by Mir Munshi Sultan Moham...

William Sprague IV (1830--1915) was a wealthy textile manufacturer and politician who served as governor of Rhode Island from 1860 to 1863 and as a U.S. senator from 1863 to 1875. Born in Cranston, Rhode Island, he attended Irving Institute in Tarrytown, New York, but was forced, after the murder of his father, to leave school early to tend to the family business. As governor he played a fundamental role in organizing troops for the Civil War. He accompanied a Rhode Island infantry regiment into action in the First Battle of Bull Run, in which his horse was shot dead under him. He was a regist...