On May 4 the Library Company unveiled its new exhibition, Mirror of a City: Views of Philadelphia Recently Acquired from the Jay T. Snider Collection. Mr. Snider, a former Library Company Trustee and avid collector of historical items, sold much of his Philadelphia-related material at a November 2008 sale organized by the New York City […]
(April 15, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) Corresponding Slides (PDF) Elizabeth P. McLean, garden historian and Library Company Trustee (and former President), speaks about her new biography of Peter Collinson, co-authored by Jean O’Neill. Collinson — a London Quaker, a draper by trade, and a passionate gardener and naturalist by avocation — was a […]
(March 19, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) Author Marc Egnal challenges the orthodoxy that the Civil War began for moral reasons, contending that more than any other concern, the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies explains the sectional clash. Egnal is Professor of History at York University and the author of several books, […]
(March 11, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) An evening event in the spirit of Martha Washington! As part of the Library Company’s Visual Culture Program, Curator of Women’s History Cornelia King brings to life the women depicted in Daniel Huntington’s painting The Republican Court; or, Lady Washington’s Reception Day (1861). The group portrait includes Martha […]
(February 19, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) An intriguing glance into the world of Philadelphia Gothic literature, where writers such as Charles Brockden Brown, George Lippard, Robert Montgomery Bird, and Edgar Allan Poe flourished. Ed Pettit, a freelance writer, book reviewer and literary provocateur, will examine the connections these writers had with one another and […]
(February 5, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) In celebration of Black History Month, the Library Company’s Program in African American History and the University of Pennsylvania Press present Maurice Jackson, Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University, to discuss his new biography of the man who led Quaker antislavery sentiment into a broad-based transatlantic […]
(October 29, 2008) Audio Download (MP3) In the first half of the 19th century, Philadelphia spawned a literary tradition of Lurid Crime, Weird Hallucination, Brooding Supernatural, and Sheer Horror – largely the work of three forgotten novelists. This exhibition resuscitates Charles Brockden Brown, Robert Montgomery Bird, and George Lippard through early editions of their […]
On October 29 our gallery, Reading Room, and Logan room were overflowing with guests who came to catch the first viewing of “Philadelphia Gothic: Murders, Mysteries, Monsters, and Mayhem Inspire American Fiction, 1798-1854,” and to hear a talk by Christopher Looby, English Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. More than 130 members and […]
On October 22 a group of Library Company members traveled north of Center City to partake in an intimate tour of some very special collections housed within Temple University Libraries. The pictures were taken in the Urban Archive department with Brenda Galloway-Wright, Associate Archivist. The department was established in 1967 to document the social, economic […]
(October 14, 2008) Audio Download (MP3) John Woolman (1720-1772), a Quaker tailor from New Jersey, had an extraordinary commitment to attaining self-purification through the rejection of slavery, war taxes, and rampant consumerism. Though not a famous politician, his persuasive ideals influenced the likes of fellow Quakers, social reformers, labor organizers, and peace advocates. Through Woolman’s […]
The Library Company has received a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to upgrade our environmental monitoring equipment. The grant funds will be used to purchase new dataloggers, a light meter, and a wireless receiver to support constant monitoring of the temperature, humidity, and light levels our collections are exposed to. Installing […]
2008 Mayor Nutter at LCP from Library Company on Vimeo.
(June 19, 2008) Audio Download (MP3) Freedom’s Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers by Richard S. Newman is a long-overdue biography of Richard Allen (1760–1831), founder of the first major African American church and the leading black activist in the age of Washington and Jefferson. A tireless […]
(May 5, 2008) Audio Download (MP3) Richard J. Blackett is a historian of the abolitionist movement in the U.S. and particularly its transatlantic connections and the roles African Americans played in it. He is the author of Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830-1860 (1983); Beating Against the Barriers: Biographical […]
There is an element of magic in the creation of a lithographic print. The process is based on a simple principle familiar to any cook or observer of urban mud puddles – oil and water do not mix. However, in practice there is nothing straightforward about the process. The production of the intricately detailed and […]
(April 3, 2008) Audio Download (MP3) The Library Company’s Visual Culture Program got off to a rousing start with our April 3rd program, “Talking Prints: A Conversation with Donald Cresswell and Christopher Lane.” Seventy-five people spent the evening at the Library Company enjoying food and drink and the company of others who share an […]
Audio Download (MP3) Former Library Company Fellow François Furstenberg speaks about his book, In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a Nation, released in paperback by The Penguin Press. François Furstenberg grew up in Boston and Washington, D.C. After graduating from Columbia University, he worked for several […]
Long before circulars jammed our mailboxes and glossy advertisements for every department store in the city came sliding out of the Sunday paper, lithography was the word—and the image—on the street. Invented in the late 1700s, lithography transformed the iconography of Philadelphia (and our entire nation) as a new process that used large slabs of […]