Maybe we can sell that one to the highest bidder too. After all, it’s only a piece of paper, right?
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Dorothy Tapper Goldman seems to have had an unusual degree of success keeping a low profile online outside of the carefully tailored philanthropic image presented to the press.
For example, I can’t seem to find out how she acquired enough material wealth to amass such an impressive collection of artifacts, or what she’s done to demonstrate why she deserves to control those artifacts of our shared cultural heritage more than the general public does.
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Could be cause… she’s wealthy? Wealth = fitness to make such decisions!
QED!
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Why do you hate philanthropy so?
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Which puts the money in her foundation where it can be used for her pet causes, and gives her a huge charitable tax donation to use to offset income.
Perhaps her foundation is okay, but remember that Charles Koch and Robert Mercer are also philanthropists.
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Likely it’s that he understands the history of philanthropy, which honestly, many people don’t. It’s often just a footnote about the guilded age where it was used to white wash wealth… An interesting primer on the issue. It’s not just about helping people, it’s about ensuring that the state does not thing to promote a more egalitarian and equitable society that more evenly distributes our shared resources:
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Almost every single major art showing I’ve walked through over my lifetime has been brought about by some sort of philanthropy. I’ll enjoy the benefits of such outreaches and look on the bright side of people bringing art and or artifacts to the public.
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Me too… that’s how much of our public culture landscape is built in fact. Doesn’t mean that there isn’t issues that can and should be addressed with that system, how it works, and who it benefits and privileges. Much less comes directly from our tax dollars, which some would prefer to our network of private philanthropic funding for the arts. You can thank right wing assholes like Jessie Helms for that shit.
But the video does a good job of distilling the argument. I’d highly recommend it.
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I don’t think it’s a bad thing for rich people to make historical and artistic treasures available for viewing by the public. I think it’s a bad thing to have a society that depends on the largesse of rich people to make historical and artistic treasures available for viewing by the public. So while Ms. Goldman may well be a nice person as the ultra-rich go, I’d still prefer that people like her didn’t exercise control over so many aspects of our cultural heritage.
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I suppose one could argue that the government could take it via some sort of eminent domain or some such. But others would claim that the original and 10 of the copies are already in public hands, so what is the reasoning that would make this specific one so much more special they need the 11th?
Maybe the reason the other copies are in public hands is that the people who had possession of them recognized that they were the kinds of cultural artifacts that no one private collector should claim for themselves.
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Or donated them for a tax write off. Or bequeathed them after death. Or Rick from Pawn Stars passed on them.
i am confused by the f’s. there are several words that have “s” on the page - congrefs, for instance. so any ideas on why the substitution? ( fubstitution? )
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I was curious to see how much the Caslon typeface has changed since William Caslon & Sons first cast the metal type used to print the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Those funny “f”-shaped "s"s are still included in the digital font Adobe Caslon as alternate glyphs, so if you’re willing to spend a bit of time futzing with the kerning you can get a pretty darn close reproduction of what the lettering on the original document looked like:
You can spot the subtle differences if you know what to look for, but all in all I’d say that’s a typeface that has held up pretty well considering it’s been around since 1728.
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A good explanation…
“The f-like s (like an f without the crossbar) was a tall variant used at the start or in the middle of a word, which the modern s was used at the end or after a tall s.”
A modern s, as if!
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The italics aren’t very close.
that is pretty darn cool. ( thank goodness they didn’t use one of those fonts with copyright. now that would be awkward )
and that is… interesting. 
really, it seems like a lot of work. the german s-set ( which maybe hasn’t been a thing for a bit now ) at least makes some sense efficiency wise…
tho i guess it could be worse. we’re lucky we don’t have different glyphs depending on the day of the week something’s written
conclusion: it’s a good day whenever i get to learn new stuff. thanks!
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Yeah, well… professional typesetters, sign painters and the like more or less died out years ago. Anyone can call themselves a graphic designer, it’s not a legally protected professional title.
And few clients realise the need to hire a real pro and/or are willing to pay accordingly. Not to mention actually listening to that pro.
So the default is some guy on a computer with a lot of fonts - but no knowledge whatsoever about typefaces - producing Nephew ArtTM for clients who think a “professional look” means “Use ALL the fonts !!!”.
It’s not pretty.
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