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.
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Upcoming Events
may



Event Details
Philadelphia at the Table: Treasures of the Larder Invaded Session 2 –Trade Cards: The Eye Eats First Tuesday, May 31st, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30
Event Details
Philadelphia at the Table: Treasures of the Larder Invaded
Session 2 –Trade Cards: The Eye Eats First
Tuesday, May 31st, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30 PM
$150 Non-members | $135 Members
Join food historian and author, William Woys Weaver and What’s Cooking blog writer, Katie Maxwell, as they explore the Treasures of the Larder Invaded in this three-part seminar. This seminar is in-person and space is limited.
Trade cards developed as a new type of culinary graphic in during the Nineteenth Century. Their message was short, eye catching, and intended to convey important information in a limited amount of space. This session will explore the world of Philadelphia trade card advertising and the value judgements they made about packaged foods, vendors, and the food service industry.
Please note: This is a series. One registration covers all three sessions.
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Time
(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
june

Event Details
The 8th Annual Lecture in Honor of John C. Van Horne, with Humanities Scholar Clay S. Jenkinson Tuesday, June 7 at 5:30 pm Hybrid Event
Event Details
The 8th Annual Lecture in Honor of John C. Van Horne, with Humanities Scholar Clay S. Jenkinson
Tuesday, June 7 at 5:30 pm
Hybrid Event
Benjamin Franklin Hall, American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut St., Philadelphia
Jenkinson will be discussing German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and his memorable 1805 visit with Thomas Jefferson. Humboldt took a long detour in his journey from Mexico to Europe to spend a few days with Jefferson, then serving his second term as President of the United States. The visit took place precisely at the time Lewis and Clark were exploring Montana and Idaho on the president’s behalf, and Humboldt’s encounters with Jefferson are revealing and delightful. Help us celebrate Dr. John C. Van Horne’s legacy of education and scholarship by joining us at the free public lecture and book signing, pre-lecture reception, and private dinner immediately following the event.
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Time
(Tuesday) 5:30 pm - 9:00 pm



Event Details
Philadelphia at the Table: Treasures of the Larder Invaded Session 3 –Food as National Anthem: The US Centennial and Culinary Innovation Tuesday, May 17,
Event Details
Philadelphia at the Table: Treasures of the Larder Invaded
Session 3 –Food as National Anthem: The US Centennial and Culinary Innovation
Tuesday, May 17, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30 PM
$150 Non-members | $135 Members
Join food historian and author, William Woys Weaver and What’s Cooking blog writer, Katie Maxwell, as they explore the Treasures of the Larder Invaded in this three-part seminar. This seminar is in-person and space is limited.
The United States Centennial in 1876 was such a seminal turning point in American and Philadelphia culinary history that entire books have been devoted to its planning and success. Foremost, the fairgrounds offered foods of all kinds, both foreign and new-fangled. This session will provide an overview of the Centennial’s food scene and not in the least, how the Women’s Committee managed to make it profitable.
Please note: This is a series. One registration covers all three sessions.
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Time
(Tuesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm



Event Details
Libraries & Liberty Seminar One: The Books Behind the Declaration Session 3 – All Men are Created Equal Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30
Event Details
Libraries & Liberty Seminar One: The Books Behind the Declaration
Session 3 – All Men are Created Equal
Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30 PM
$200 Non-members | $180 Members
How have libraries aided the cause of liberty, in the United States and elsewhere? What kind of liberty, and for whom? What role do libraries play now in ensuring the continued freedom of people in our country and around the world?
The Libraries & Liberty seminar series is a collaboration between The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, The Library Company of Philadelphia, and The Rosenbach Museum & Library. Each seminar will build on the last as these three cultural institutions use their collections and areas of expertise to engage with these questions. The Books Behind the Declaration, hosted by the Library Company and lead by director Dr. Michael Barsanti, begins the series by looking specifically at the moment of our country’s founding, and how the books in the collection of the Library Company were a part of the conversation and debate.
Schedule for The Books Behind the Declaration
Wednesday April 20th, 2022 6:00-7:30 Libraries, Books, and the Enlightenment
Wednesday May 18th, 2022 6:00-7:30 The Course of Human Events
Wednesday June 15th, 2022 6:00-7:30 All Men are Created Equal
Wednesday July 6th 2022 6:00-7:30 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
*This closing session will be hosted in-person at the Library Company with a reception.
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Time
(Wednesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm



Event Details
Fireside Chat with Xine Yao Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America June 16th, 2022,
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Xine Yao
Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America
June 16th, 2022, 5:30 p.m. ET
Virtual & Free
In Disaffected, Xine Yao explores the racial and sexual politics of unfeeling—affects that are not recognized as feeling—as a means of survival and refusal in nineteenth-century America. She positions unfeeling beyond sentimentalism’s paradigm of universal feeling. Yao traces how works by Herman Melville, Martin R. Delany, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Sui Sin Far engaged major sociopolitical issues in ways that resisted the weaponization of white sentimentalism against the lives of people of color. In this presentation, Yao will focus on Chapter 4 “Objective Passionlessness : Black Women Doctors and Dispassionate Strategies of Uplifting Love,” which was informed by her time as a fellow and features archival material from the Library Company and Drexel.
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Time
(Thursday) 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
17jun6:00 pm7:30 pmVirtual/ Physical EventJuneteenth: Erecting New MonumentsFree

Event Details
Celebrate Juneteenth at the Library Company of Philadelphia Erecting New Monuments June 17th, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. ET Free & Hybrid This year’s Juneteenth Freedom Program
Event Details
Celebrate Juneteenth at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Erecting New Monuments
June 17th, 2022 at 6:00 p.m. ET
Free & Hybrid
This year’s Juneteenth Freedom Program will feature public historian and artist Michelle Browder, the visionary behind the new The Mothers Of Gynecology Monument in Montgomery Alabama which opened in February of 2022. The Mothers of Gynecology immortalizes three of the women — known as Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey — who went under J. Marion Sims’s knife, a doctor known as “father of modern gynecology” who performed experimental surgeries on enslaved women in antebellum era Alabama. Browder, who has been leading local award-winning history tours (known as “More Than Tours”) for the past ten years, will present on her decades long practice of intervening in dominant historical narratives and building alternative institutions.
Sponsored by the Program in African-American History
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Time
(Friday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Event Details
Historical Happy Hour: Red, White and Booze with the First Ladies of Philadelphia Tuesday, June 28, at 7:00 pm Virtual Event For a decade, Philadelphia served as
Event Details
Historical Happy Hour: Red, White and Booze with the First Ladies of Philadelphia
Tuesday, June 28, at 7:00 pm
Virtual Event
For a decade, Philadelphia served as our nation’s capital. Two women — Martha Washington and Abigail Adams — served as First Ladies during that time. We’ll compare the stories of these two founding mothers while mixing up a refreshing Red, Blue and White Sangria. 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
july



Event Details
Libraries & Liberty Seminar One: The Books Behind the Declaration Session 4 – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, 6 PM
Event Details
Libraries & Liberty Seminar One: The Books Behind the Declaration
Session 4 – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Wednesday, June 15th, 2022, 6 PM to 7:30 PM
$200 Non-members | $180 Members
How have libraries aided the cause of liberty, in the United States and elsewhere? What kind of liberty, and for whom? What role do libraries play now in ensuring the continued freedom of people in our country and around the world?
The Libraries & Liberty seminar series is a collaboration between The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, The Library Company of Philadelphia, and The Rosenbach Museum & Library. Each seminar will build on the last as these three cultural institutions use their collections and areas of expertise to engage with these questions. The Books Behind the Declaration, hosted by the Library Company and lead by director Dr. Michael Barsanti, begins the series by looking specifically at the moment of our country’s founding, and how the books in the collection of the Library Company were a part of the conversation and debate.
Schedule for The Books Behind the Declaration
Wednesday April 20th, 2022 6:00-7:30 Libraries, Books, and the Enlightenment
Wednesday May 18th, 2022 6:00-7:30 The Course of Human Events
Wednesday June 15th, 2022 6:00-7:30 All Men are Created Equal
Wednesday July 6th 2022 6:00-7:30 Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
*This closing session will be hosted in-person at the Library Company with a reception.
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Time
(Wednesday) 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Event Details
“I Have Sometimes Imagined a Library”: Browsing the Shelves with Henry Thoreau, Featuring Christine Nelson Tuesday, July 12th Reception for in-person attendees 6:30-7:00 pm
Event Details
“I Have Sometimes Imagined a Library”: Browsing the Shelves with Henry Thoreau, Featuring Christine Nelson
Tuesday, July 12th
Reception for in-person attendees 6:30-7:00 pm
Lecture begins at 7:00 pm
Hybrid 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
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.
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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
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 20th, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET Virtual & Free In
Event Details
Fireside Chat with Caylin Carbonell
October 20th, 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.
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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