Registration

• Tuition for this course is $115. Members receive exclusive discounts on our programs and courses. Not a member? Learn more.

• Please check your spam folder for your email confirmation. If you have questions, please call (215) 732-1600 or email rsvp@rosenbach.org.

• This program is for those 18 and older.

• To promote access to onsite and virtual Rosenbach experiences, we offer scholarships for each Signature Program. To inquire, email Associate Curator and Manager of Public Programs Bryn Michelson-Ziegler at bziegler@rosenbach.org.

Description

Have you ever tried to hack a letter? 

Join co-author of Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter, Jana Dambrogio, to learn the rich history of document security technologies. 

This hands-on class invites participants to explore how individuals folded letters to function as their own creative, and occasionally top-secret, enclosures before (and after) the invention of the envelope in 1830. Use paper, wax, scissors, and seals to reconstruct several historical letterlocking formats found in the Rosenbach’s collection while discussing the relative security, innovation, and elegance of each model. 

The highlight of this class will be an in-depth look at a unique 19th-century missive penned by a founding father. This letter sheds exciting new light on the global exchange of letterlocking techniques. 

Instructor

Jana Dambrogio is a conservator, researcher, educator, and artist specializing in developing freely accessible resources and treatment techniques to conserve the integrity of material culture and the secrets they contain. She previously held positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries, the US National Archives, the United Nations, and the Vatican Apostolic Archives. She is the Director of the Unlocking History Research Group, an international and interdisciplinary collection of experts dedicated to studying historical communication technologies, and the co-author of Letterlocking: The Hidden History of the Letter (with Daniel Starza Smith and the Unlocking History Research Group).