The Library Company will be closed December 24 through January 2. We will reopen on January 5.
Visit
Explore
Donate
For Scholars
For Educators
Upcoming Events
Current Month
January
06jan6:00 pm7:00 pmThe Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution
Event Details
The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution with Joyce Chaplin January 6th, 2026 at 6 pm at the American Philosophical Society, 105 S 5th St
Event Details
The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution with Joyce Chaplin
January 6th, 2026 at 6 pm
at the American Philosophical Society, 105 S 5th St
Join the American Philosophical Society and The Library Company of Philadelphia on Tuesday, January 6, 2026, to hear from Joyce E. Chaplin (APS 2020) on Benjamin Franklin’s scientific innovation and consumer invention, the Franklin stove.
The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era’s most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate crisis: a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related crisis: a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. And he conceived of his invention as equal parts appliance and scientific instrument—a device that, by modifying how heat and air moved through indoor spaces, might reveal the workings of the atmosphere outside and explain why it seemed to be changing. With his stove, Franklin became America’s first climate scientist.
Joyce E. Chaplin’s The Franklin Stove is the story of this singular invention, and a revelatory new look at the Founding Father we thought we knew. We follow Franklin as he promotes his stove in Britain and France, while corresponding with the various experimenters who discovered the key gases in Earth’s atmosphere, invented steam engines, and tried to clean up sooty urban air. During his travels back and forth across the Atlantic, we witness him taking measurements of the gulf stream and observing the cooling effect of volcanic ash from Iceland. And back in Philadelphia, we watch him hawk his invention while sparring with proponents of the popular theory that clearcutting forests would lead to warmer winters by reducing the amount of shade cover on the surface of the Earth. As the story of the Franklin stove shows, it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis; with this book, Chaplin reveals how that challenge is as old as the United States itself.
more
Time
January 6, 2026 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm(GMT-05:00)
09jan11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, January 9th at 11:00 AM In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, January 9th at 11:00 AM
In-Person Event
Join us for a guided tour of the Library Company’s first-floor exhibition galleries. Learn more about the history of the de facto first Library of Congress and oldest colonial cultural institution in the United States. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about the collection materials showcased in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available for all First Fridays in November 2025 through April 2026.
more
Time
January 9, 2026 11:00 am - 12:00 pm(GMT-05:00)
Event Details
January Fireside Chat Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of
Event Details
January Fireside Chat
Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1714-1763
with Amy Watson
Tuesday, January 27th, 2026 at 7 PM ET
Eva Landsberg will interview Amy Watson about her new book, Patriots Before Revolution: The Rise of Party Politics in the British Atlantic, 1714-1763 (Yale University Press, 2025).
In Patriots Before Revolution, historian Amy Watson shows that the political label “Patriot” was first adopted by a network of British politicians with radical ideas about the principles and purpose of the British Empire. The early Patriots’ ideological mission was not American independence but, rather, imperial reform: Patriots sought to create a British Empire that was militant, expansionist, confederal, and free. Over the course of the eighteenth century, these reformers used print media and grassroots mobilization efforts to expand their party to North America, where Patriotism would have revolutionary implications in the decades to come. The interview will be followed by Q&A.
Amy Watson is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned a PhD from Yale University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California/Huntington Library, Early Modern Studies Institute. Her research has been supported by the Massachusetts Historical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, and the Library Company of Philadelphia, among others. Her other publications include articles in The William and Mary Quarterly and The Scottish Historical Review.
Hosted by the Program in Early American Economy and Society
more
Time
January 27, 2026 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm(GMT-05:00)
Event Details
Episodes from A Flood of Pictures: The Formation of a Picture Culture in the United States Book talk with author Dr. Michael Leja Friday, January 30th,
Event Details
Episodes from A Flood of Pictures: The Formation of a Picture Culture in the United States
Book talk with author Dr. Michael Leja
Friday, January 30th, 2026 at 1:30 PM ET
Virtual Event | Free
When and how did pictures begin to permeate everyday lives in the United States? What happened to those daily lives when they did? And what happened to pictures in the process? The formative period for this cultural transformation was the three decades before the Civil War, when the ordinary experiences of a large segment of the population came to include pictures of many kinds, including illustrations in books, pamphlets, and newspapers; photographs on cards; full-sheet printed pictures collected in scrapbooks or albums or hung on walls; posters and broadsheets; spectacular paintings displayed in theatrical venues; and more.
In a surprisingly short span of time pictures assumed important functions. They supplemented verbal texts—and in some cases overshadowed them—for conveying news and information; portraying people, places, and events; selling things; educating and instructing; promoting and disguising political agendas; and shaping social identities. All sorts of individual and collective experiences were increasingly mediated by visual representations.
This talk will highlight two of the influential projects featured in A Flood of Pictures. They help to illuminate a time before successful pictorial formulas for mass appeal were established, before an audience habituated to consumption of pictures existed, and before pictures had become thoroughly commodified.
A Flood of Pictures is available for purchase at University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hosted by the Visual Culture Program
more
Time
January 30, 2026 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm(GMT-05:00)
February
06feb11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, February 6th at 11:00 AM In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, February 6th at 11:00 AM
In-Person Event
Join us for a guided tour of the Library Company’s first-floor exhibition galleries. Learn more about the history of the de facto first Library of Congress and oldest colonial cultural institution in the United States. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about the collection materials showcased in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available for all First Fridays in November 2025 through April 2026.
more
Time
February 6, 2026 11:00 am - 12:00 pm(GMT-05:00)
19febAll Day20Black Declarations of Independence: Before and After 1776
Event Details
Black Declarations of Independence: Before and After 1776 February 19th-2oth, 2026 The American Philosophical Society, Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut St REGISTER
Event Details
Black Declarations of Independence: Before and After 1776
February 19th-2oth, 2026
The American Philosophical Society, Benjamin Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut St
The Program in African American History at the Library Company, in partnership with American Philosophical Society, will host Black Declarations of Independence, Before and After 1776, a two-day public conference exploring how Black people have articulated, enacted, and reimagined freedom across time.
We are pleased to announce that our keynote speakers will include:
-
Christopher L. Brown, historian of the British empire and professor of history at Columbia University, with award-winning projects such as Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (2006)
-
Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl. M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University, and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello (2008) and On Juneteenth (2021)
-
Nell Irvin Painter, renowned historian, artist, author, and Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University, with bestsellers such as Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol (1996) and The History of White People (2010)
The significance of this event is especially urgent amid current debates and controversies surrounding Philadelphia’s 250th-anniversary commemorations. This gathering insists that any reckoning with 1776 must also attend to the multiple, ongoing declarations of freedom that mark the presence and persistence of Black life within, and beyond, American history.
more
Time
February 19, 2026 - February 20, 2026 (All Day)(GMT-05:00)
More upcoming events here.
Library Company Announces Plans for Semiquincentennial
The Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, opened its collections to the delegates to the First Continental Congress in September 1774. At the time, its collections held virtually every significant work of political theory, history, law, and statecraft to be found in the American colonies. That privilege was extended to delegates to subsequent Congresses, the Constitutional Convention, and the early Federal Congresses while Philadelphia was the national capital until 1800. This heritage as the first, though unofficial, Library of Congress places the Library Company in a unique position to shed light on the Revolutionary era. Plans for the Semiquincentennial center on two exhibitions.
Appointments are now required to access the Scheide reading room and the Graphic Arts Department reading room.
For text materials (Scheide reading room), appointments are required. Click here to learn more.
For visual materials (Graphic Arts Department reading room), appointments are required. Click here to learn how to make an appointment.
Join Our Mailing List!
Thank you for joining the The Library Company of Philadelphia mailing list. We look forward to keeping you informed.
By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact
Current Exhibitions
Current Month
December
Event Details
Fair Winds and Following Seas: Peacetime Naval Operations to 1939 On view at The Library Company of Philadelphia from October 2025 – April 2026 During their
Event Details
Fair Winds and Following Seas: Peacetime Naval Operations to 1939
On view at The Library Company of Philadelphia from October 2025 – April 2026
During their 250-year existence, the United States Navy (USN) and Marine Corps (USMC) have participated in vital operations outside the scope of war. Maritime actions that supported the development and success of the United States was, and is, within the scope of these two conjoined branches of the military. This exhibition will highlight some of those actions of the USN and USMC, up to 1939. These actions include exploration, rescues, humanitarian missions, diplomacy, slave trade interdiction, and protection of commerce. While at times requiring combat, the primary goal of these operations was not the defeat of an identified foe in a declared war. Rather, they represent the historical understanding that a nation’s strength lies not only in its ability to defeat its enemies through military action, but also through its ability to protect its interests, grow and understand its dominion, and build strategic partnerships. Fair Winds and Following Seas will feature books, graphics, and ephemera that describe this peacetime, but not always peaceful, life on the high seas.
more
Time
October 9, 2024 5:30 pm - April 9, 2026 7:00 pm(GMT-05:00)