Saturday, March 13th, at 11 a.m., WRTI 90.1 FM aired the radio interview of Philadelphia on Stone director and Assistant Curator Erika Piola and Project Assistant Linda Wisniewski. Conducted by local historian and commentator Tom Keels, the interview focuses on the library’s upcoming exhibition Philadelphia on Stone: The First Fifty Years of Commercial Lithography, 1828-1878and […]
On April 27 the Library Company hosted a group of Trustees and friends of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. This was a stop on the group’s marathon eight-day trip to libraries and museums in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Our visitors heard about the history of the Library Company […]
(May 12, 2009) Audio Download (MP3)
(May 11, 2010) Audio Download (MP3) Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its democracy for all times. But in fact his masterpiece, Democracy in America, was the product of a young man’s open-minded experience of America at […]
Thursday, April 22, 2010, 6:00 p.m. Wendy A. Woloson, independent scholar and consulting historian, will discuss her new book, In Hock: Pawning in America from Independence through the Great Depression. This illustrated talk traces the history of pawnbroking in America from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, following the rise of the business […]
Philadelphia on Stone: The First Fifty Years of Commercial Lithography in Philadelphia, 1828-1878, explores the history of 19th-century Philadelphia lithography and its impact on contemporary visual culture. Philadelphia on Stone explicates the history and process of lithography, documents the professional and personal lives of premier and journeymen lithographers, and includes lithographs from the collections of […]
Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America By Ann Norton Greene, University of Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 2, 6:00p.m. The Library Company of Philadelphia This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to lpropst@librarycompany.org or call 215-546-3181. Historians have long assumed that new industrial machines and power sources eliminated work animals from […]
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This past month, we bought a copy of the first edition of The Married Woman’s Private Medical Companion (New York, 1847), by an “A.M. Mauriceau,” in part because it contains a remarkable inscription: “Book Bought April 22d 1848 of a Picture Pedlar at 4/ — + cheap at that.” The book subsequently went through some […]
Please Note: In 2017, we moved to a new digital repository. We have recently upgraded ImPAC, our digital collections catalog, to DigiTool, a Digital Asset Management System that replaces ENCompass, our former platform. The new ImPAC provides the user with enhanced features including improved searching, easier collection browsing, and the ability to zoom and rotate […]
Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification Wednesday, October 14, 6:00 p.m. David Waldstreicher, Professor of History at Temple University and author of Runaway America and In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes; will discuss his new book Slavery’s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification, which explores the impact of slavery on the United States Constitution. By […]
Panoramic View Available Here The Logan room has been dramatically transformed into an exhibition gallery displaying works from our permanent collection of Art and Artifacts. Board President Beatrice Garvan and Trustee Carol Soltis selected the objects to be included, many of which were previously in storage. The room has been repainted and raised platforms now […]
Madeline Carlson: Madeline Kreider Carlson, a history major from Haverford College, added to our database of published portraits of American women. Madeline also assisted in the Reading Room and designed an online exhibition featuring women who stepped outside the bounds of 19th-century propriety. Breana Copeland: Breana is a Photography and Digital Arts major at […]
Exhibition Opening: Catching a Shadow Thursday, October 1, 2009 Reception at 5:30 p.m., program at 6:00 Keith F. Davis, Curator of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, in Kansas City, and author of numerous books including The Origins of American Photography: From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839-1885, will speak about the remarkable achievement of […]
With support from the Samuel S. Fels Fund the Library Company is pleased to make a wonderful collection of photographs available for public research and use. The collection consists of more than 200 portraits taken ca. 1910-1940 by local photographer John Frank Keith (1883-1947) in the neighborhoods of South Philadelphia and Kensington. Keith captured residents of […]
Jane Marker Dedication Philadelphia: July 7, 2009 – On July 18, 1855, one hundred fifty-four years ago, Jane Johnson, an enslaved woman from North Carolina, found herself in Philadelphia on free soil for the first time. She seized the opportunity and fled to freedom with her two young sons Daniel and Isaiah, aided by William […]
Peter Mancall on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart The Library Company of Philadelphia 1314 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 TEL 215-546-3181 FAX 215-546-5167 http://www.librarycompany.org
Peter Mancall will be a guest tonight on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He will discuss his new book: “Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson: A Tale of Mutiny and Murder in the Arctic ”. Peter is a former fellow and will be delivering at the Library Company of Philadelphia on September […]
(May 12, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) Watch Video Online (FLV) – with corresponding slides. Kenneth Finkel, Distinguished Lecturer in Temple University’s American Studies Program and former Library Company Curator of Prints and Photographs, presents a talk with slides entitled “Same Old or New Old? Twenty-first Century Thinking About Nineteenth-Century Collections”
Friday, June 19, 2009 Reception at 5:30 p.m., program at 6:00. Join us at the Library Company on Friday, June 19th for our Juneteenth Freedom Forum, featuring three area scholars discussing the African American struggle for freedom in the era of the Civil War and beyond. Dr. Robert Francis Engs, Professor of History (retired) University […]