Fireside Chat: Meet the Director Designate of the Library Company: Dr. Jessica Choppin Roney

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Wednesday, May 13, 2026, at 7 PM ET

The Library Company is in the midst of big changes, not least the appointment of the first woman to lead the institution in its nearly 300-year history. This event is intended to introduce Jessica Choppin Roney, currently Director Designate, and later to be Director of the Library Company after our merger with Temple University. Join us for a conversation with her hosted by Maria Thompson, president of the Board of Trustees at the Library Company.

Dr. Roney is Associate Professor of History at Temple University and the author of Governed by a Spirit of Opposition: The Origins of American Political Practice in Colonial Philadelphia and the recent article, “‘An Expansion of the Same Society’: Republican Government and Empire in the Early Republic,” in the Journal of American History, both of which won prizes. She has served as the Director of the Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) at the Library Company since 2024. Before that she was on the editorial staff of the Journal of the Early Republic from 2017 to 2024. Her work has been supported with fellowships from the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, the Clements Library, the Society of the Cincinnati, the Filson Historical Society, the Arts and Humanities Research Council in Britain, the Ohio Academy of History, Ohio University, Temple University, and, of course!, the Library Company of Philadelphia. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.