Historical Context

The Library Company’s First Shareholders, by Dana Dorman
Learn more about the Library Company’s first 25 shares, all of which were issued in 1731, and who owned them over time.

The Library Company’s First Order of Books, by Dana Dorman
Learn more about the Library Company’s first order of books in 1732, and which works are still part of the collection today.

Librarians at the Library Company from its Founding Through 1881

Upstairs, Downstairs at the Library Company of Philadelphia, by Erika Piola

More About the Library Company’s Users Over the Years:

• Subscription Libraries and Commercial Circulating Libraries in Colonial Philadelphia and New York, by Jim Green
• The Intellectual Heritage of the Constitutional Era; The Delegates’ Library, by Jack P. Greene