For the safety of all guests and staff, proof of COVID-19 vaccination and masking are required of all guests. You will be asked to provide proof of vaccination upon entering the building. Proof will be accepted in the form of a your original vaccination card, a photo of it on your phone, or a photocopy of the original.
All guests are required to remain properly masked throughout their time at the Library Company.
The reading rooms are currently welcoming researchers by appointment:
For text materials (first-floor reading room), click here to learn how to make an appointment
For visual materials (second-floor reading room), click here to learn how to make an appointment.
For information about Rights and Reproduction services, follow this link.
Follow us on social media and explore our digital resources and online learning community.
Upcoming Events
july
Event Details
Live from the Morgan Room: Book Talk with David Brown, The First Populist Friday, July 8th, at 12:00 pm Members-only Event Virtual Event The Library Company
Event Details
Live from the Morgan Room: Book Talk with David Brown, The First Populist
Friday, July 8th, at 12:00 pm
Members-only Event
Virtual Event
The Library Company of Philadelphia invites you to join Philadelphia Club members and their guests for a virtual presentation by prominent American historian David Brown on his latest book, The First Populist: The Defiant Life of Andrew Jackson (Scribner, 2022). This event will be live-streamed on Zoom; a link will be sent in your registration confirmation email.
Co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Club and the Library Company of Philadelphia.
Members can email Development@librarycompany.org to register for this free event.
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Time
(Friday) 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
08jul2:00 pm3:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, July 8th, from 2-3 pm In-Person Event Join us for a docent-led tour
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, July 8th, from 2-3 pm
In-Person Event
Join us for a docent-led tour of the Library Company’s first-floor exhibition galleries. Learn more about the history of America’s first library of Congress and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and hear a guided tour of our current exhibition, Hearing Voices: Memoirs from the Margins of Mental Health.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available for:
Friday, July 8, from 2-3 pm
Friday, July 29, from 11 am-12 pm
Friday, August 19, from 10-11 am
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Time
(Friday) 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Event Details
“I Have Sometimes Imagined a Library”: Browsing the Shelves with Henry Thoreau, Featuring Christine Nelson Tuesday, July 12th 7:00 pm Virtual Event If Thoreau had
Event Details
“I Have Sometimes Imagined a Library”: Browsing the Shelves with Henry Thoreau, Featuring Christine Nelson
Tuesday, July 12th
7:00 pm
Virtual Event
If Thoreau had been a Philadelphian, would he have read at the Library Company? He would have found much to engage him here. But after spending a day in Boston’s venerable libraries in 1852, he imagined a more elemental home for the books he valued: a primitive forest where literary and scientific works would be shelved side by side in crumbling natural alcoves. Join us on Thoreau’s 205th birthday as Fellowships Manager Christine Nelson explores his dynamic relationship with books and reflects on her many years as the keeper of his journal at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum—the unlikely repository of the notebooks of our nation’s most famous simplifier. Presented in association with the release of the anthology Ways of Walking (New Door Books, 2022).
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Time
(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
21jul7:00 pm8:00 pmVirtual EventFIRESIDE CHAT: The Guide to Indigenous Land ProjectFree
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Rule 2021 Innovation Award Winner Guide to
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Dr. Elizabeth Rule
2021 Innovation Award Winner Guide to Indigenous DC
July 21st, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
Guide to Indigenous DC is a digital map, mobile application, and monograph of sites of Indigenous importance in the nation’s capital. By highlighting sites of importance to Native peoples within, and contributions to, Washington, DC, Guide to Indigenous DC showcases empowering stories of how this prominent city is a place of tribal gathering, presence, and advocacy with a long, rich history. Users of this free iOS application have access to a map of 17 sites of Indigenous importance, including photos, descriptions, and external resources, and can be used for both in-person touring or virtual tours with 360-degree on-the-ground views of the sites.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America Book Talk with historian John Wood Sweet
Event Details
The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America
Book Talk with historian John Wood Sweet
July 26th, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. ET
Free & Virtual
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Time
(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
29jul11:00 am12:00 pmLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, July 29th, from 11 am – 12 pm In-Person Event Join us for
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, July 29th, from 11 am – 12 pm
In-Person Event
Join us for a docent-led tour of the Library Company’s first-floor exhibition galleries. Learn more about the history of America’s first library of Congress and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and hear a guided tour of our current exhibition, Hearing Voices: Memoirs from the Margins of Mental Health.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available for:
Friday, July 8, from 2-3 pm
Friday, July 29, from 11 am-12 pm
Friday, August 19, from 10-11 am
more
Time
(Friday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
august
09aug7:00 pm8:00 pmVirtual EventHistorical Happy Hour: Hard Tea and ArtistryMember Event
Event Details
Historical Happy Hour: Hard Tea and Artistry Tuesday, August 9, at 7:00 pm Virtual Event Philadelphia has a long history of nourishing the talents of
Event Details
Historical Happy Hour: Hard Tea and Artistry
Tuesday, August 9, at 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
Philadelphia has a long history of nourishing the talents of female artists. One of the most famous American artists of all time, Mary Cassatt, honed her craft in the city and drew inspiration for her paintings depicting motherly love. We’ll honor Cassatt and the legacy of female artists with a delicious (and visually stunning) tea-infused cocktail.
Hosted by storyteller and mixologist Jacey Powers of Feminist Cocktail Hour. The ingredient list for our cocktail (or alternate mocktail) will be sent to registrants at least two weeks before the event.
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Time
(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Director’s Hour with Michael Barsanti: Benjamin Franklin and the Making of Modern Money Tuesday, August 16th Reception for in-person attendees 6:30-7:00 pm Lecture
Event Details
Director’s Hour with Michael Barsanti: Benjamin Franklin and the Making of Modern Money
Tuesday, August 16th
Reception for in-person attendees 6:30-7:00 pm
Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Hybrid Event
In Philadelphia, we tend to think of Benjamin Franklin’s legacy in terms of the institutions (like ours) that he helped to establish. In his lifetime, he was known mostly as a scientist, as the man who “stole lightning from the skies.” Today, around the world, Franklin is probably most recognized as the face on the $100 bill. His place there signifies that beyond his role as a diplomat, legislator, and scientist; he was very concerned with money itself and how it helps an economy function. Library Company of Philadelphia Edwin Wolf 2nd Director Michael Barsanti, Ph.D., will talk about Franklin and money – its role in his life and business, his arguments for the use of paper money, his innovations for making paper money more secure – but also how Franklin’s work with money anticipated the current development of cryptocurrency.
more
Time
(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Mathew Kruer August 18th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Virtual & Free Matthew
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Mathew Kruer
August 18th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
Matthew Kruer is Assistant Professor of Early North American History and the College at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015. His first book, Time of Anarchy: Indigenous Power and the Crisis of Colonialism in Early America (Harvard University Press, 2022), is based on a doctoral dissertation that was awarded the 2016 Allan Nevins Prize from the Society of American Historians.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
19aug10:00 am11:00 amLibrary Company History & Exhibitions TourTOUR
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour Friday, August 19th, from 10 – 11 am In-Person Event Join us
Event Details
Library Company History & Exhibitions Tour
Friday, August 19th, from 10 – 11 am
In-Person Event
Join us for a docent-led tour of the Library Company’s first-floor exhibition galleries. Learn more about the history of America’s first library of Congress and oldest cultural institution. Guests will also learn more about art and artifacts on display in the Logan Room, and hear a guided tour of our current exhibition, Hearing Voices: Memoirs from the Margins of Mental Health.
Space is limited, so please sign up for only one tour time per person. Tickets are available for:
Friday, July 8, from 2-3 pm
Friday, July 29, from 11 am-12 pm
Friday, August 19, from 10-11 am
more
Time
(Friday) 10:00 am - 11:00 am
20aug1:00 pm4:00 pmHearing Voices Presents: Art Therapy in History and PracticeFree
Event Details
Hearing Voices: Memoirs from the Margins of Mental Health Presents Art Therapy in History and Practice Saturday, August 20th, 1-4:00 pm Art Psychotherapist and Licensed Professional Counselor Marlie
Event Details
Hearing Voices: Memoirs from the Margins of Mental Health Presents
Art Therapy in History and Practice
Saturday, August 20th, 1-4:00 pm
Art Psychotherapist and Licensed Professional Counselor Marlie Krickus, from The Child and Family Art Therapy Center, will give a historical overview of art therapy as an integrative mental health treatment followed by an interactive exercise in community art therapy and support in which we will create and exchange “affirmation tags.” This activity is designed to accommodate a wide age group with any level of artistic experience, and involves writing or drawing. Self -guided tours of the exhibition, which features original art created by and related to those who received treatment in 19th century asylums, will be encouraged.
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Time
(Saturday) 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
september
Event Details
The Caregivers: A Photography Project Addressing Emotional and Physical Labor During a Pandemic Lecture by Helen Maurene Cooper September 8th, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. ET
Event Details
The Caregivers: A Photography Project Addressing Emotional and Physical Labor During a Pandemic
Lecture by Helen Maurene Cooper
September 8th, 2022 at 5:30 p.m. ET
Free & Hybrid
Learn about The Caregivers, artist and educator Helen Maurene Cooper’s current portrait project rooted in 19th-centry wet-plate collodion photographic techniques and a sidewalk studio. Cooper’s ambrotype portraits explore caregiving not as a given role for women but within the context of queer and feminist ideologies and the notion of this labor as a radical act. Spend the evening with Ms. Cooper as she shares portraits from The Caregivers and discusses the artistic process for her newest body of work that addresses public space and the politics of family and intimacy during a period of self-isolation.
Sponsored by the Visual Culture Program
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Time
(Thursday) 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Camille Kaszubowski September 15th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Virtual &
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Camille Kaszubowski
September 15th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
The American Revolution disrupted households and family economies increasing the number of women on their own–widows, wives with absentee husbands, and single women–who often found themselves in great need. When women’s individual efforts to survive failed, many petitioned the government for assistance, but Pennsylvania’s unstable economy and the nature of the petitioning process, pulled women into long and entangled relationships with governing bodies. Some spent lifetimes petitioning. This talk explores the petitioning efforts of Pennsylvania women–patriots, loyalists, and those who fell somewhere in between–during the war and in its long aftermath. It examines how wartime disruptions shaped family economies and household responses.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
Functional Design: Library Furniture in the Collection, Presented by Linda Kimiko August A Library Company Virtual Collection Review Tuesday, September 20th, at 7:00 pm
Event Details
Functional Design: Library Furniture in the Collection, Presented by Linda Kimiko August
A Library Company Virtual Collection Review
Tuesday, September 20th, at 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
A working library requires numerous pieces of furniture to operate and serve its readers. The Library Company acquired many of these items over its long history, from the practical to the functional to cutting-edge technical innovations. Curator of Art and Artifacts and Visual Materials Cataloger Linda Kimiko August will share highlights from the Library Company’s collection, including a set of Windsor chairs made by Joseph Henzey in 1792; a clock made by John Child to ring at the Library Company’s closing time at sundown; and the then-innovative card catalog introduced in 1876.
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Time
(Tuesday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
october
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Caylin Carbonell October 13th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Virtual & Free In
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Caylin Carbonell
October 13th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
In the kitchens and garrets of colonial New England homes, surrounded by barrels of foodstuffs and other reminders of daily work, slept a diverse group of unfree laborers, some enslaved, others indentured or hired. These laboring women and men—African, Indigenous, and Euro-American—have long remained marginal in histories of colonial New England. In this talk, Dr. Carbonell reveals how we can critically press written and material archives to locate glimpses of the everyday experiences of this racially diverse set of New Englanders who are often treated as absent in colonial archives. By centering unfree people in our understanding of early New England’s early history, she reveals the foundational role they played in the development of the region’s economy and society.
more
Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
18oct6:00 pm7:30 pmVirtual EventBlack on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans IdentityFree
Event Details
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity Charlotte Cushman Society Lecture featuring Dr. C. Riley Snorton October 18th, 2022 at 6:00 p.m.
Event Details
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
Charlotte Cushman Society Lecture featuring Dr. C. Riley Snorton
October 18th, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. ET
Free & Virtual
Created in 2018, the Charlotte Cushman Society is a group of donors dedicated to recovering and sharing LGBT history and will support on-going initiatives and exploration.
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Time
(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
november
Event Details
“Books Are My Disease” : A Two-Part Series Exploring the Loganian Library Part I: The Loganian Library at Stenton Free & Virtual Tuesday, November 15 at 12:30pm
Event Details
“Books Are My Disease” : A Two-Part Series Exploring the Loganian Library
Part I: The Loganian Library at Stenton
Free & Virtual
Tuesday, November 15 at 12:30pm ET
Join Stenton’s Curator Laura Keim and the Library Company’s Librarian Emeritus Jim Green for a virtual tour and conversation exploring the original rooms, closets, and shelf locations that housed the Loganian Library at Stenton, James Logan’s house near Germantown. After the pre-recorded tour, there will be time for LIVE discussion and an audience Q&A.
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Time
(Tuesday) 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Nicholas Guyatt November 17th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Virtual & Free In
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Nicholas Guyatt
November 17th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
In the final months of 1814, the twentieth largest American city was actually in southwest England: more than five thousand American prisoners of war were stranded in Dartmoor Prison, a giant facility built by the British to house PoWs from the Napoleonic wars. In The Hated Cage, Nicholas Guyatt, Professor of North American History at the University of Cambridge, tells the extraordinary story of the American presence at Dartmoor, and brings to life the desperate but lively worlds built by the prisoners during their years of captivity. With a particular focus on the interactions between Black and white prisoners, it asks a fundamental question: as Americans back in the United States debated whether Black and white people could live alongside each other in freedom, did Dartmoor prove that they could forge a shared existence in captivity?
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Event Details
“Books Are My Disease” : A Two-Part Series Exploring the Loganian Library Part II The Loganian Library at the Library Company of Philadelphia Free & Virtual Tuesday, November
Event Details
“Books Are My Disease” : A Two-Part Series Exploring the Loganian Library
Part II The Loganian Library at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Free & Virtual
Tuesday, November 22 at 12:30pm ET
Building upon the November 15 event discussing 18th-century book storage at Stenton, Emily Guthrie and Jim Green will share highlights and stories from Logan’s collection in its present home at the Library Company. Commonly referred to as the “Loganian Library,” the collection comprised over 2,600 volumes at the time of Logan’s death in 1751. Consisting chiefly of books in Latin and Greek, the collection was among the finest in Colonial America.
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Time
(Tuesday) 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
december
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Brian Luskey Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Brian Luskey
Men Is Cheap: Exposing the Frauds of Free Labor in Civil War America
December 15th, 2022 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
Men Is Cheap shows that in the process of winning the war, Northerners were forced to grapple with the frauds of free labor. Labor brokers, by helping to staff the Union military and Yankee households, did indispensable work that helped the Northern state and Northern employers emerge victorious. They also gave rise to an economic and political system that enriched the managerial class at the expense of laborers–a reality that resonates to this day. Brian Luskey is Professor of History at West Virginia University, where he teaches a variety of courses about the nineteenth-century United States.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
january
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Etta Madden “Mr. Kate Cromo”: News Correspondent Anne Hampton Brewster in Rome, 1869-1890 January
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Etta Madden
“Mr. Kate Cromo”: News Correspondent Anne Hampton Brewster in Rome, 1869-1890
January 19th, 2023, 7:00 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
American women abroad have often been more than tourists. In this Fireside Chat, Etta Madden will share her research on Anne Hamptom Brewster form her recent book Engaging Italy: American Women’s Utopian Visions and Transnational Networks. Engaging Italy depicts the intertwined lives of three now-little-known figures—Caroline Crane Marsh, Anne Hampton Brewster and Emily Bliss Gould—whose paths crossed as they lived abroad for more than fifteen years. These women seized opportunities to be engaged in the political changes of the 1860s and 70s known as Italian Unification.
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Time
(Thursday) 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
2022 Holiday Closings
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – Jan 17, 2022
President’s Day – Feb 21, 2022
Memorial Day – May 30, 2022
Juneteenth – June 20, 2022
Independence Day – July 4, 2022
Labor Day – September 5, 2022
Thanksgiving- November 24 & 25, 2022
Christmas Day (observed) – December 23, 2022
Winter Break – December 26, 2022 – January 2, 2023
For more information on these events please call 215-546-3181 or email events@librarycompany.org