Celebrate Women’s History Month at the Library Company of Philadelphia

The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker…and the People Who Have Studied It

Talk by Sarah Heim, Former Director of Research Services, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania

March 10th, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. ET

                                                                         Free & Virtual

In 1889 Henry D. Biddle published extracts from the diary of his great-grandmother—Philadelphia Quaker Elizabeth Sandwith Drinker (1734-1807)—with an apologetic note that it would “only be of interest to her immediate descendants.” However, the 20th century saw the diary cited in periodicals from the British Medical Journal to the Newsletter of the Association of Preservation Technology, as well as innumerable works on American history. In this talk Sarah Heim will trace the physical history of the thirty-four handwritten volumes of the diary, and highlight a few of the many scholars who have studied it.

Sponsored by The Davida T. Deutsch Program in Women’s History

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Tuesday, March 15, at 7:00 pm

Mary Putnam Jacobi: Advocate for Gender Equality
featuring Cornelia King Curator of Women’s History

A Library Company Virtual Collection Review

In her career, Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842-1906) de-pathologized women’s sexuality. Her 1876 prize-winning essay “The Question of Rest for Women during Menstruation” countered the then-prevalent belief that physical and mental exertion during menses threatened a woman’s health. Jacobi’s own life as a professional woman, wife, and mother underscored her central thesis: menses, sex, and pregnancy were all aspects of healthy women’s physiology and not impediments to gender equality. Curator of Women’s History Cornelia King will show items from the collection that trace Jacobi’s career from her early efforts as a short-story writer (encouraged by her father, publisher G.P. Putnam) to her many contributions to 19th-century medical literature.

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