Making Gullah: A Black History Celebration & Conversation 

February 9th, 2023
6:00pm ET
Virtual & Free

2023 Black History Month speaker Dr. Melissa L. Cooper, author of Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination, which examines the emergence of “the Gullah” in scholarly and popular works during the 1920s and the 1930s will be in conversation with Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, Director of the Program in African American History. They’ll discuss Gullah/Geechee heritage, the history of its depiction, the realities of Black life in the Low Country, and their shared Gullah heritage.

Sponsored by The Program in African-American History

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Fireside Chat with Dr. Susan Brandt

Women Healers: Gender, Authority, and Medicine in Early Philadelphia

Historical Happy Hour: Forget-Me-Not(ini): The Unexamined Life of Sarah Mapps Douglass

Tuesday, February 21st, at 7:00 pm

Virtual Event

Members: Free, Nonmembers: $10

Who was Sarah Mapps Douglass? An educator, an abolitionist, one of the first black women to enroll in medical school, and the creator of perhaps the earliest surviving signed painting by an African American woman. While her accomplishments are numerous, her name remains unknown. We’ll raise a Forget-Me-Not(tini) inspired by one of her earliest paintings, while we remember this remarkable Philadelphia woman. The ingredient list for our cocktail (and mocktail) will be sent roughly two weeks before the event.

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Live from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Book Talk with Andrew Diemer on Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad

Friday, February 24th

Reception and Lunch at the Philadelphia Club, 1301 Walnut St., 11:30 am – 1:00 pm

Book Talk at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust St., 1:15 pm – 2:15 pm

In-Person Members-Only Event

The Library Company of Philadelphia invites you to join Philadelphia Club members as well as members of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the American Philosophical Society for a presentation by historian Andrew Diemer on his book, Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad (Knopf, 2022). The book tells the remarkable story of William Still, who dedicated his life to managing a critical section of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia. Co-sponsored by the Philadelphia Club, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the American Philosophical Society, and the Library Company of Philadelphia.

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The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice 

A Book Talk with Dr. Holly A. Pinheiro Jr.

Thursday, March 9th, 2023

Free & Hybrid

Taking a long view, from 1850 to the 1920s, Holly A. Pinheiro Jr. shows how Civil War military service worsened already difficult circumstances due to its negative effects on family finances, living situations, minds, and bodies. The Families’ Civil War provides a compelling account of the lives of USCT soldiers and their entire families but also argues that the Civil War was but one engagement in a longer war for racial justice.

Dr. Holly A. Pinheiro Jr. is an assistant professor of African American history at Furman University. He is the author of articles in American Nineteenth Century History, the African American Intellectual History Society’s Black Perspectives blog, and the Journal of the Civil War Era‘s Muster blog.

Sponsored by The Program in African-American History

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The Families’ Civil War: Collection Review with Dr. Holly Pinheiro

Friday, March 10th, 12:00-1:00 pm

Virtual Event

Members: Free, Nonmembers: $10

As a follow-up to Dr. Holly Pinheiro’s March 9th Book Talk, The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice, join us for a special virtual collection review of some of the Library Collection materials he used in his research, including Civil War recruiting materials and ephemera, maps, and more.

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Fireside Chat with Dr. Daniel Diez Couch

American Fragments: The Political Aesthetic of Unfinished Forms in the Early Republic

Celebrate Women’s History Month at the Library Company of Philadelphia

The Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States: a Book Talk by Joan M.  Johnson, Director for Faculty at Northwestern University

March 23rd, 2023 at 6:00 p.m. ET

Virtual & Free

Sponsored by The Davida T. Deutsch Program in Women’s History

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Phillis Wheatley and Friends: Celebrating 250 Years of Wheatley’s Poems
with Dr. Tara Bynum 

First Session: Wednesday April 12th, 6pm to 7:30pm ET

 $200 Non-members | $175 Members
(Cost includes all three sessions)

Phillis Wheatley is often fixed in time as a lone, singular voice. This course will introduce students to another story for the young poet and, by implication, a new story for early African American writing. What if Wheatley is not by herself, but is instead an active interlocutor, friend, writer, and lover in various communities throughout New England, England, and elsewhere? These communities buy Wheatley’s book, live through a war, and later have to mourn the loss of their friend. They are communities, too, that write, read, and leave behind a legacy in manuscript and in print. The aim of the class is to ask new questions and to situate this writing amidst old, new, and different ways of reading and to center the living of Black women and men in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Schedule for Phillis Wheatley and Friends

Wednesday, April 12th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 19th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 26th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

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Phillis Wheatley and Friends: Celebrating 250 Years of Wheatley’s Poems
with Dr. Tara Bynum 

Second Session: Wednesday April 19th, 6 PM to 7:30pm ET

 $200 Non-members | $175 Members
(Cost includes all three sessions)

Phillis Wheatley is often fixed in time as a lone, singular voice. This course will introduce students to another story for the young poet and, by implication, a new story for early African American writing. What if Wheatley is not by herself, but is instead an active interlocutor, friend, writer, and lover in various communities throughout New England, England, and elsewhere? These communities buy Wheatley’s book, live through a war, and later have to mourn the loss of their friend. They are communities, too, that write, read, and leave behind a legacy in manuscript and in print. The aim of the class is to ask new questions and to situate this writing amidst old, new, and different ways of reading and to center the living of Black women and men in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Schedule for Phillis Wheatley and Friends

Wednesday, April 12th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 19th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 26th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

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Fireside Chat with Dr. Michael D’Alessandro

Contesting Class in Popular American Theater and Literature, 1873-75

Phillis Wheatley and Friends: Celebrating 250 Years of Wheatley’s Poems
with Dr. Tara Bynum 

Third Session: Wednesday April 26th, 6pm to 7:30pm ET

 $200 Non-members | $175 Members
(Cost includes all three sessions)

Phillis Wheatley is often fixed in time as a lone, singular voice. This course will introduce students to another story for the young poet and, by implication, a new story for early African American writing. What if Wheatley is not by herself, but is instead an active interlocutor, friend, writer, and lover in various communities throughout New England, England, and elsewhere? These communities buy Wheatley’s book, live through a war, and later have to mourn the loss of their friend. They are communities, too, that write, read, and leave behind a legacy in manuscript and in print. The aim of the class is to ask new questions and to situate this writing amidst old, new, and different ways of reading and to center the living of Black women and men in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Schedule for Phillis Wheatley and Friends

Wednesday, April 12th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 19th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

Wednesday, April 26th | 6:00-7:30pm ET

REGISTER