"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

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) - Lecture Adobe PDF Document - Slides

(October 17, 2011)  Audio Download (MP3) - ProgramAdobe PDF Document - Slides Carol Soltis, Library Company Trustee and Curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Center for American Art, will discuss the work of the artist James Peale, focusing on our recently-acquired portraits of Zachariah and Susannah Knorr Poulson. Co-sponsored by the Center for American Art.

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

(June 21, 2010)  Audio Download (MP3) - Main Program Audio Download (MP3) - Audience Discussion The Library Company commemorated Juneteenth on June 21, 2010 with a panel discussion on the past eight years of controversy surrounding the discovery of the slave quarters and the nine slaves who served President George Washington at his Philadelphia home at 6th and Market Streets. Introductory remarks by Library Company Director John Van Horne and Curator of African American History Phil Lapsansky; moderated by Linn Washington, journalist with the Philadelphia Tribune; panelists were Edward Lawler, independent scholar; Michael Coard, attorney and founder of ATAC (Avenging the Ancestors Coalition); and Randall M. Miller, professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University. For more information on the President’s House, please visit: http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/index.htm

(June 19, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) This Juneteenth Freedom Forum event featured three area scholars discussing the African American struggle for freedom in the era of the Civil War and beyond. Dr. Robert Francis Engs, Professor of History (retired) University of Pennsylvania, “Who Freed the Slaves? The black Revolutionary Struggle for Freedom.” Dr. Elizabeth Varon, Professor of History and Associate Director, Center for the Humanities, Temple University, “From Appomattox to Juneteenth: Lee’s Defeat and the End of Slavery.” Dr. Randall M. Miller, Professor of History, St. Joseph’s University, “Juneteenth, Before and After: African American Freedom Celebrations, Historical Memory, and Contemporary Activism.”

(May 12, 2009) Audio Download (MP3)

(May 12, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) Watch Video Online (FLV) - with corresponding slides. Kenneth Finkel, Distinguished Lecturer in Temple University’s American Studies Program and former Library Company Curator of Prints and Photographs, presents a talk with slides entitled “Same Old or New Old? Twenty-first Century Thinking About Nineteenth-Century Collections”

(April 15, 2009) Audio Download (MP3) Corresponding Slides (PDF) Elizabeth P. McLean, garden historian and Library Company Trustee (and former President), speaks about her new biography of Peter Collinson, co-authored by Jean O’Neill. Collinson -- a London Quaker, a draper by trade, and a passionate gardener and naturalist by avocation -- was a facilitator in natural science, disseminating botanical and horticultural knowledge. He found clients for the Philadelphia Quaker farmer and naturalist John Bartram at a time when the English landscape was evolving to emphasize trees and shrubs, and the more exotic the better. Thus, American plants came to populate great British estates as well as the Chelsea Physic Garden. Collinson was a member of the Royal Society who encouraged Franklin’s electrical experiments and had the results published, he corresponded about myriad natural phenomena, and he was ahead of his time in understanding the extinction of animals and the migration of birds. Though a man of modest Quaker demeanor, because of his passion for natural science, he had an unprecedented effect on the exchange of scientific information on both sides of the Atlantic. Co-sponsored by the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania

(March 19, 2009) Audio Download (MP3)  Author Marc Egnal challenges the orthodoxy that the Civil War began for moral reasons, contending that more than any other concern, the evolution of the Northern and Southern economies explains the sectional clash. Egnal is Professor of History at York University and the author of several books, including A Mighty Empire: The Origins of the American Revolution.