"African American Women in the Era of Emancipation"  The Program in African American History at the Library Company of Philadelphia hosted its annual Juneteenth Freedom seminar on Friday, June 21, 2013. The theme, "African American Women in the Era of Emancipation," explores the Civil War experiences of free and enslaved black women as they challenged slavery and defined freedom on the front lines. Click Here for Brochure (PDF) Click here for Video

(February 28, 2013) This talk by 2012 - 2013 William H. Helfand Visual Culture Fellow Allison Lange discussed how images became powerful political tools for suffragists and their opponents, and the ways in which reformers used pictures to transform conceptions of gender and reimagine womanhood during the nineteenth century. Audio Download (MP3)

Contemporary Photographs in Response to the Historic Works of William H. Rau Michael Froio Thursday, March 7, 2013  This lecture by Michael Froio looks at W. H. Rau's 1890s photographs of the Pennsylvania Railroad and explores their importance to his project to photographically document the former PRR Main Line. Froio  also investigates the importance of dialog between historic and contemporary photographs.   Audio Download (MP3) - LectureAdobe PDF Document - Slides

(April 12, 2012) Visual Culture Program Fellow Catherine Walsh discussed the ways in which children learned to construct visual narratives by thinking about a variety of sources, including textbooks, primers and readers, illustrated magazines, toys, and games.  The goal is to begin to understand how visual education informed one's experience of genre paintings and illustrations, both as a child and later in life. Audio (MP3) Slides (PDF)

Laurel Hill Cemetery is among the most celebrated – and most densely populated – swaths of Greater Philadelphia. Beneath seventy-eight acres of lawn, trees, and monuments lie some 70,000 bodies – a sprawling and silent subdivision that took shape over nearly two centuries. Today's expanses of stone and sod testify to the success of the original vision while making it hard to decipher. Listen to Curator Aaron Wunsch's audio tour of the gallery exhibition: http://www.librarycompany.org/digitalmedia/Aaron_TourLHC.mp3 View the corresponding PowerPoint here: http://www.librarycompany.org/digitalmedia/LHCTourWithAaronWunsch.pdf ... or follow along while browsing the online exhibition: http://www.librarycompany.org/laurelhill/index.htm

Guest Curator Aaron Wunsch points out the highlights of our current exhibition “Building a City of the Dead: The Creation and Expansion of Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery” in the following video courtesy of Jon Snyder of the Philadelphia Daily News. Click Here for the online exhibition: Building a City of the Dead: The Creation and Expansion of Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery” For more information about these and other Library Company programs, please contact: Lauren Propst, Publicity, Events, & Program Coordinator [email protected]

(October 14, 2008) Audio Download (MP3)  John Woolman (1720-1772), a Quaker tailor from New Jersey, had an extraordinary commitment to attaining self-purification through the rejection of slavery, war taxes, and rampant consumerism. Though not a famous politician, his persuasive ideals influenced the likes of fellow Quakers, social reformers, labor organizers, and peace advocates. Through Woolman’s essays and Journal, first published in 1774, historian Thomas P. Slaughter illuminates Woolman’s transformation from a humble idealist to a prophetic voice for the Anglo-American world.

(October 29, 2008)  Audio Download (MP3)  In the first half of the 19th century, Philadelphia spawned a literary tradition of Lurid Crime, Weird Hallucination, Brooding Supernatural, and Sheer Horror - largely the work of three forgotten novelists. This exhibition resuscitates Charles Brockden Brown, Robert Montgomery Bird, and George Lippard through early editions of their works and oil portraits never before exhibited, and puts them in the company of Edgar Allan Poe, who absorbed their themes and obsessions while he lived in Philadelphia - the birthplace of the Gothic tradition in American literature. Speaker: Christopher Looby, Professor of English, University of California at Los Angeles.

(February 5, 2009) Audio Download (MP3)  In celebration of Black History Month, the Library Company’s Program in African American History and the University of Pennsylvania Press present Maurice Jackson, Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University, to discuss his new biography of the man who led Quaker antislavery sentiment into a broad-based transatlantic movement.

(February 19, 2009) Audio Download (MP3)  An intriguing glance into the world of Philadelphia Gothic literature, where writers such as Charles Brockden Brown, George Lippard, Robert Montgomery Bird, and Edgar Allan Poe flourished. Ed Pettit, a freelance writer, book reviewer and literary provocateur, will examine the connections these writers had with one another and reveal how Philadelphia Gothic became one of the most influential sub-genres in American Literary History. Presented in conjunction with the Library Company’s exhibition Philadelphia Gothic: Murders, Mysteries, Monsters, and Mayhem Inspire American Fiction, 1798-1854.