Upcoming Events
june
02jun11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, June 2, at 11:00 am In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, June 2, 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 of the United States and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about collection materials on display in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available on First Fridays from April through September:
Friday, April 7, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, May 5, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, June 2, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, July 7, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, August 4, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, September 1, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
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Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
07jun6:00 pm7:00 pmVirtual EventCurating Queer Collections: An LGBT Archivist RoundtableFree
Event Details
Curating Queer Collections: An LGBT Archivist Roundtable June 7th, 2023 6:00 p.m. ET Virtual Event | Free How are queer archives created? How do we organize and describe
Event Details
Curating Queer Collections: An LGBT Archivist Roundtable
June 7th, 2023
6:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event | Free
How are queer archives created? How do we organize and describe them? This panel discussion will explore these questions and more by bringing together archivists, curators, and librarians from institutions focused on LGBT history to discuss the challenges and successes of curating their queer collections. Joining us will be moderator A. Wynn Eakins, Library Company Reading Room Assistant, and Panelists John Anderies, Director of the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at the William Way Community Center; Krü Maekdo, Founder of the Black Lesbian Archives; K.J. Rawson, Project Director at the Digital Transgender Archive; and Em Ricciardi, LGBTQ+ Subject Specialist at the Library Company.
Sponsored by the Charlotte Cushman Society
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Time
(Wednesday) 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Sarah Naramore Benjamin Rush, Civic Health, and Human Illness in the Early American Republic
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Sarah Naramore
Benjamin Rush, Civic Health, and Human Illness in the Early American Republic
June 15th, 2023
7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event | Free
At the end of the Revolutionary War, new American citizens found themselves in a new country. For Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush and his colleagues, that newness extended beyond a change in political structure. They believed that the physical challenges of growing cities and western expansion and the psychological challenges of new identities came together in ways that could help or hurt American health. From his vantage point at one of the nation’s few medical schools, Rush developed a reputation as America’s physician—while mixing social and scientific ideas for the “improvement” of the country as a whole. This book explores Rush’s social and scientific networks and their role in the development of a distinctly American medical profession.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Celebrate Juneteenth at the Library Company of Philadelphia The Sounds of Freedom June 16th, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. ET Hybrid Event | Free This year’s Juneteenth
Event Details
Celebrate Juneteenth at the Library Company of Philadelphia
The Sounds of Freedom
June 16th, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. ET
Hybrid Event | Free
This year’s Juneteenth Freedom Program will feature multihyphenate Dr. Scot Brown, Associate Professor of African American Studies and History at UCLA, author of Fighting for Us: Maulana Karenga, the Us Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism, and musician under the name Scotronixx. The Sounds of Freedom will explore the quest for Black empowerment and civil rights through African American music from the 1970s to the present day. As close to home as Philadelphia International Records, but with reverberations that stretch far and wide, we hope you’ll join us to explore this vital dimension of the Black freedom struggle in the United States.
Sponsored by the Program in African-American History
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Time
(Friday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
july
07jul11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, July 7, at 11:00 am In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, July 7, 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 of the United States and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about collection materials on display in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available on First Fridays from April through September:
Friday, April 7, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, May 5, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, June 2, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, July 7, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, August 4, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, September 1, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
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Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Details
“A Stupendous Folly:” Philadelphia Celebrates America’s Sesquicentennial, Presented by Sarah Weatherwax Tuesday, July 11, 7:00 pm Virtual Event
Event Details
“A Stupendous Folly:” Philadelphia Celebrates America’s Sesquicentennial, Presented by Sarah Weatherwax
Tuesday, July 11, 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
Members: Free, Nonmembers: $10
Civic leaders are beginning to formulate plans of how America will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Join Senior Curator of Graphic Arts Sarah Weatherwax for an exploration of how we celebrated America’s 150th anniversary. For six months in 1926, Philadelphia hosted the Sesquicentennial International Exposition, a world’s fair designed to attract millions of visitors from near and far. Plagued by bad weather, construction delays, and a general lack of public enthusiasm, however, the fair was largely a failure. From posters to postcards, promotional brochures to photographs, Weatherwax will review the Sesquicentennial material in the Library Company’s holdings.
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Time
(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Justine S. Murison Faith in Exposure: Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Justine S. Murison
Faith in Exposure: Privacy and Secularism in the Nineteenth-Century United States
July 20th, 2023
7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event | Free
Recent legal history in the United States reveals a hardening tendency to treat religious freedom and sexual and reproductive freedom as competing, even opposing, claims on public life. They are united, though, by the fact that both are rooted in our culture’s understanding of privacy. Faith in Exposure shows how, over the course of the nineteenth century, privacy came to encompass such contradictions—both underpinning the right to sexual and reproductive rights but also undermining them in the name of religious freedom.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
august
04aug11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, August 4, at 11:00 am In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, August 4, 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 of the United States and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about collection materials on display in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available on First Fridays from April through September:
Friday, April 7, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, May 5, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, June 2, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, July 7, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, August 4, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, September 1, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
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Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Details
Director’s Hour with Michael Barsanti: “A Dukedom Large Enough:” Shakespeare and the Library Company of Philadelphia Wednesday, August 9, 7:00 pm
Event Details
Director’s Hour with Michael Barsanti: “A Dukedom Large Enough:” Shakespeare and the Library Company of Philadelphia
Wednesday, August 9, 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
Members: Free, Nonmembers: $10
Visitors to the Library Company may notice that they are greeted by the busts of two men above the front desk: George Washington and William Shakespeare. Washington is certainly a part of our history and may well have been a visitor, but why is Shakespeare there? Edwin Wolf 2nd Director Michael Barsanti will talk about the place Shakespeare held in colonial America and his place at the Library Company. What plays were most popular with early shareholders? What was the first volume of Shakespeare acquired by the Library Company? Who were the biggest lovers of Shakespeare among our early community and what place does Shakespeare occupy in our present understanding of the culture of early America?
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Time
(Wednesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Mairin Odle Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Mairin Odle
Under the Skin: Tattoos, Scalps, and the Contested Language of Bodies in Early America
August 17th, 2023
7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event | Free
Under the Skin investigates the role of cross-cultural body modification in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century North America, revealing that the practices of tattooing and scalping were crucial to interactions between Natives and newcomers. These permanent and painful marks could act as signs of alliance or signs of conflict, producing a complex bodily archive of cross-cultural entanglement. Indigenous body modification practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers, making tattooing and scalping key forms of cultural and political contestation in early America. Although these bodily practices were quite distinct—one a painful but generally voluntary sign of accomplishment and affiliation, the other a violent assault on life and identity—they were linked by growing colonial perceptions that both were crucial elements of “Nativeness.” Tracing the transformation of concepts of bodily integrity, personal and collective identities, and the sources of human difference, Under the Skin investigates both the lived physical experience and the contested metaphorical power of early American bodies.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
september
01sep11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, September 1, at 11:00 am In-Person Event Join us for a
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, September 1, 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 of the United States and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and as well as hear about collection materials on display in our rotating exhibition space.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available on First Fridays from April through September:
Friday, April 7, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, May 5, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, June 2, from 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, July 7, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, August 4, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
Friday, September 1, 11:00 am-12:00 pm
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Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Event Details
Wrap it Up: Wrappers of All Shapes, Sizes, and Forms in the Graphic Arts Collection, Presented by Erika Piola Thursday, September
Event Details
Wrap it Up: Wrappers of All Shapes, Sizes, and Forms in the Graphic Arts Collection, Presented by Erika Piola
Thursday, September 14, 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
Members: Free, Nonmembers: $10
Join Curator of Graphic Arts and Director of the Visual Culture Program Erika Piola as she explores the visual culture and history of all kinds of 19th-century wrappers in the holdings of the Graphic Arts Department. From illustrated wrapping papers to advertising envelopes to paper containers of whatchamacallits, Piola will discuss the importance of these ephemeral pieces as objects of consumer culture and practical, and sometimes zany, works of popular art.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Rachel E. Walker Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Rachel E. Walker
Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America
September 21st, 2023
7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual Event | Free
Between the 1770s and the 1860s, people all across the globe relied on physiognomy and phrenology to evaluate human worth. These once-popular but now discredited disciplines were based on a deceptively simple premise: that facial features or skull shape could reveal a person’s intelligence, character, and personality. In the United States, these were culturally ubiquitous sciences that both elite thinkers and ordinary people used to understand human nature. While the modern world dismisses phrenology and physiognomy as silly and debunked disciplines, Beauty and the Brain shows why they must be taken seriously: they were the intellectual tools that a diverse group of Americans used to debate questions of race, gender, and social justice. While prominent intellectuals and political thinkers invoked these sciences to justify hierarchy, marginalized people and progressive activists deployed them for their own political aims, creatively interpreting human minds and bodies as they fought for racial justice and gender equality. Ultimately, though, physiognomy and phrenology were as dangerous as they were popular. In addition to validating the idea that external beauty was a sign of internal worth, these disciplines often appealed to the very people who were damaged by their prejudicial doctrines. In taking physiognomy and phrenology seriously, Beauty and the Brain recovers a vibrant—if largely forgotten—cultural and intellectual universe, showing how popular sciences shaped some of the greatest political debates of the American past.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
2023 Holiday Closings
The Library Company will observe the following holidays in 2023:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – Jan 16, 2023
President’s Day – Feb 20, 2023
Memorial Day – May 29, 2023
Juneteenth – June 19, 2023
Independence Day – July 4, 2023
Labor Day – September 4, 2023
Thanksgiving- November 23 & 24, 2023
Christmas Day – December 25, 2022
Winter Break – December 26, 2023 – January 1, 2024
For more information on these events please call 215-546-3181 or email events@librarycompany.org