Experiencing the Last Days of Pompeii in Late Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia

Abstract

This chapter examines how Philadelphians both presented and experienced the cataclysm of Pompeii's destruction through three examples: Nydia, the Blind Girl of Pompeii by Randolph Rogers, one of the most important nineteenth-century American sculptures; an 1878 installation of peephole cabinet views of tableaux narrating the last days of Pompeii; and the 1904 installation of reproduction bronzes from Herculaneum at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. The chapter demonstrates important ways in which understanding of the ancient sites shifted in the late nineteenth century, especially how Pompeii became a field on which Philadelphians played out ideas about social class, education, and popular spectacle.