When Charles Dana Gibson began drawing his “Gibson Girl” sketches in the early 1900s he intended the drawings—pictures of elite young women looking oh-so-haughty—to be a form of satire. Seems that some folks didn’t get the joke, though, because before long other artists picked up where Gibson left off and created similar images that, instead, idealized the upper class. The idea took hold, especially, at exclusive universities, where sketches of “college girls” (also called “football girls,” “college queens” and “university girls”) cheering on their school became popular postcard images. Among the artists who drew Penn college girls was F. Earl Christy, a native Philadelphian and graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, whose work gained popularity with some assistance from his father, William B. Christy, who helped get the drawings published. Christy’s sketches, which had many imitators, reached their peak in popularity in 1906 and 1907.
For more on this and other notable moments in Penn’s history, visit the University Archives web site at www.archives.upenn.edu.
Novel plant-based approach to a better, cheaper GLP-1 delivery system
Research led by Penn Dental’s Henry Daniell investigates the use of a lettuce-based, plant-encapsulated delivery platform as a new oral delivery of two GLP-1 drugs previously approved by the FDA in injectable form.
No brain, no gain: Neuronal activity enhances benefits of exercise
Research led by Penn neuroscientist J. Nicholas Betley and collaborators finds that hypothalamic neurons are essential for translating physical exertion into endurance, potentially opening the door to exercise-mimicking therapies.
In honor of Valentine's Day, and as a way of fostering community in her Shakespeare in Love course, Becky Friedman took her students to the University Club for lunch one class period. They talked about the movie "Shakespeare in Love," as part of a broader conversation on how Shakespeare's works are adapted.
In Becky Friedman’s English course Shakespeare in Love, undergraduate students analyze language, genre, and adaptation in the Bard’s plays through the lens of love.
Beating the heat: Designing cooling for bodies in motion
Dorit Aviv, director of Weitzman’s Thermal Architecture Lab, studies how humans, technology, and design intersect, paving the way for the development of novel approaches to cooling people efficiently.
