Oscar Wilde's 1882 Lecture

verification

Newspaper report

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

verifytimes118

verification (venue)

Memoir

Our Philadelphia, ‪Elizabeth Robins Pennell.
‪J. B. Lippincott‬, 1914, 347.

Indication

Letter (Oscar Wilde)

To Mrs George Lewis
January 17, 1882, Philadelphia

Letters, p.128

historical note

Horticultural Hall *
250 South Broad Street, (below Locust), Philadelphia, PA

pdcc00093

horthallandacademy2

Built: 1881 (Addison Hutton)
Opened: January 5, 1882, 12 days before Wilde's lecture
Replaced: Samuel Sloan's original Horticultural Hall on the same site (July 1867-January 31, 1881, fire)
Destroyed: May 27, 1893 (fire)
Replaced by: (New) Horticultural Hall (Frank Miles Day) on the same site (b. 1894-96, demolished 1917)

* 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

horticultural-hall1

The First Horticultural Hall
250 South Broad St. | 1867-1881
(Samuel Sloan)

horticultural-hall2

The Second Horticultural Hall
250 South Broad St. | 1881-93
(Addison Hutton)

WILDE LECTURED HERE

DayBuilding

The Third Horticultural Hall
250 South Broad St. |1896-1917
(Frank Miles Day)

horticultural-hall4

Horticultural Hall in Fairmount Park (1875-1955)
Part of the Centennial Exhibition
(Hermann J. Schwarzmann)

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 building to the right is extant

aldinemcnally