Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour

Friday, July 11th 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 May through October.

REGISTER

REGISTER

Tuesday, July 22nd at 7 PM ET

Virtual Event | Free

In his new book American Laughter, American Fury, Eran A. Zelnik offers a cultural history of early America that shows how humor among white men served to define and construct not only whiteness and masculinity but also American political culture and democracy more generally. This humor — a category that includes “Indian play,” Blackface Minstrelsy, and frontier tall tales — transformed the United States into a white man’s democracy: a country in which only white men could be truly comfortable in their own skin.

Dr. Eran Zelnik received his PhD from UC Davis in 2016 and for the past seven years has been teaching history at Chico State University in California. A cultural historian, his work examines the intersecting categories of race, gender, and nationalism in the early United States. Alongside his recently published book, American Laughter, American Fury, Humor and the Making of a White Man’s Democracy, 1750-1850, he has published articles in the Journal of the Early Republic and in Early American Studies.

Hosted by the Program of Early American Economy and Society

Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour

Friday, August 1st 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 May through October.

REGISTER

Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour

Friday, September 5th 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 May through October.

REGISTER

11th Annual Lecture in Honor of John C. Van Horne, with Richard Kagan

Thursday, September 11th, 2025

Franklin Hall at the American Philosophical Society 

Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour

Friday, October 3rd 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 May through October.

REGISTER