Talking In The Library

Kayla Anthony serves as Executive Director of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks (PhilaLandmarks), currently in her second year. For eighty-nine years PhilaLandmarks has played a significant role in the historic preservation movement in Philadelphia by restoring, furnishing and presenting to the public its distinguished house museums: the Powel House, Grumblethorpe, Hill-Physick House and Historic Waynesborough. Previous to this position, Ms. Anthony served as PhilaLandmarks' Development and Programs Manager where she honed her vision to focus the organization on programmatic community engagement and contributed revenue development. She also served as the Resident Site Manager of the Hill-Physick House. Graduating summa cum laude with a B.A. in French and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, she brings a diverse, creative background to the organization, along with a keen understanding of strategic partnerships and networking. Samantha Snyder is the Reference

Fireside Chat: America's First Celebrity Preacher and How He Perfected the Protestant Art of Talking about Yourself Dr. Seth Perry is Associate Professor of Religion in America at Princeton University. His first book, Bible Culture and Authority in the Early United States (Princeton University Press, 2018) explores the performative, rhetorical, and material aspects of bible-based authority in early-national America. His work has appeared in Church History, Early American Studies, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Scholarly Publishing, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Sightings, and the LA Review of Books. Current projects include; an article on "scriptural failure"; a project on animals in early American religious history; and a biography of Lorenzo Dow, the early-national period's most famous itinerant preacher. Dr. Perry was a McNeil Center for Early American Studies Fellow at the Library Company in 2011. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 23, 2020.

Dr. Steven C. Bullock is Professor of History at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His books include Tea Sets and Tyranny: The Politics of Politeness in Early America and Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840. Winner of WPI’s award for Outstanding Research and Creative Scholarship, he has served as a Fulbright Lecturer in Japan. He also been published in Newsday and the Wall Street Journal, and appeared on ABC, CNN, NPR, and in documentaries that have aired on PBS, the History Channel, and elsewhere. Dr. Bullock was the Reese Fellow in American Bibliography at the Library Company of Philadelphia in 2017. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 16, 2020.

Dr. Lucas A. Dietrich is Adjunct Professor of Humanities at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a council member and former president of the New England American Studies Association and the recipient of a Northeast Modern Language Association Fellowship at the Newberry Library and a Directors' Scholarship at Rare Book School. Dr. Dietrich has published articles in Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), Book History, and Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America (PBSA). His book, Writing Across the Color Line: U.S. Print Culture and the Rise of Ethnic Literature, has just been released by the University of Massachusetts Press. Dr. Dietrich was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Library Company of Philadelphia in 2016. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 9, 2020.

Dr. Sally Hadden is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Western Michigan University. Hadden writes about and researches law and history in early America. She is the author of Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas (Harvard University Press, 2001) and coeditor of three books: Signposts: New Directions in Southern Legal History (University of Georgia Press, 2013); A Companion to American Legal History (Wiley Blackwell, 2013); and Traveling the Beaten Path: Charles Tait’s Charges to Federal Grand Juries, 1822-1825 (University of Alabama School of Law/University of Alabama Press, 2013). Dr. Hadden is currently working on a study of the earliest U.S. Supreme Court (under contract with Cambridge University Press) and a monograph on eighteenth-century lawyers in colonial American cities, the subject of this talk. She has been a research fellow at the Library Company on three occasions (2003, 2005, and 2016). This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, July 2, 2020.

Dr. Tyson Reeder is an expert in early U.S. foreign relations and state building. He is an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia where he serves as an editor with the Papers of James Madison. He is the author of Smugglers, Pirates, and Patriots: Free Trade in the Age of Revolution and the editor of the Routledge History of U.S. Foreign Relations. He is currently writing a book called Foreign Intrigues: James Madison, Party Politics, and Foreign Meddling in Early America. Dr. Reeder was a Program in Early American Economy and Society Fellow at the Library Company in 2013. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, June 25, 2020.

Unfreedom: The Limits of the Fourteenth Amendment Under Reconstruction discusses race in the twentieth century as a specific form of ideological technology. Focusing on the events and voices between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Walter Greason lead a discussion about the economic, political, social, and cultural foundations of white supremacy as products of an emerging industrial order. From the regimentation of the plantation in the early nineteenth century through the rigidity of commodity and financial markets at the start of the Cold War, this talk illuminates the networks that led to entrenched inequality for more than a century. Dr. Walter D. Greason is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. Dr. Greason’s research focuses on the comparative, economic analysis of slavery, industrialization, and suburbanization. With a variety of co-editors, Dr. Greason has published Planning F

Dr. Michael Goode is Associate Professor of History and Political Science at Utah Valley University, where he specializes in early America and the British Atlantic with a focus on religion, political culture, and the history of peace and violence. He is the editor of The Specter of Peace: Rethinking Violence and Power in the Colonial Atlantic (Brill, 2018) and he will contribute an article to the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Peace History. His book project, "A Colonizing Peace: The Struggle for Order in Early America," examines the role of peace as a language and practice of government in colonial Pennsylvania. Michael was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Library Company in 2009. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, June 11, 2020.

David J. Kent is a lifelong Abraham Lincoln researcher, career scientist, Vice President of the Lincoln Group of the District of Columbia, and board member of the Abraham Lincoln Institute. His most recent book is Lincoln: The Man Who Saved America, and he has also written on Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Kent writes a regular book review column in the Lincolnian, publishes many articles and reviews, and gives regular public talks. David’s next book project focuses on Lincoln's interest in technology. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, June 4, 2020.

Dr. Allison K. Lange is Associate Professor of History at the Wentworth Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in History from Brandeis University. The subject of this Fireside Chat, is her book Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women's Suffrage Movement, published in May 2020 by the University of Chicago Press. Dr. Lange's book focuses on the ways that women's rights activists and their opponents used images to define gender and power during the suffrage movement. Numerous institutions have supported her work, including the National Endowment for the Humanities, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Library of Congress, and American Antiquarian Society. Dr. Lange was the William H. Helfand Fellowship in American Visual Culture at the Library Company in 2012. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 28, 2020.

Dr. Scott C. Miller is the International Center for Finance postdoctoral fellow in Economic and Business History at the Yale School of Management. He earned his Ph.D from the University of Virginia in 2018, specializing in the transformation of the American economy after independence from Great Britain. His work explores the effect of economic, political, and social turmoil on commercial networks, domestic markets, trade systems, and business practices in the post-Revolutionary United States and early 19th-Century Europe. Dr. Miller was a Library Company PEAES Research Fellow in 2017. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 21, 2020.

Dr. Lauren F. Klein is an Associate Professor of English and Quantitative Theory & Methods at Emory University, where she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab. Klein is the author of An Archive of Taste: Race and Eating in the Early United States (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and, with Catherine D’Ignazio, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020). With Matthew K. Gold, she edits Debates in the Digital Humanities, a hybrid print-digital publication stream that explores debates in the field as they emerge. Klein was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Library Company in Spring 2014. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 14, 2020.

Dr. Adam Laats is Professor of Education and History at Binghamton University (State University of New York). He completed his PhD at the University of Wisconsin—Madison in 2007. He is the author of several books, including Fundamentalist U: Keeping the Faith in American Higher Education (Oxford University Press, 2018) and The Other School Reformers: Conservative Activism in American Education (Harvard University Press, 2015). Prof. Laats was a short-term McNeil Fellow at the Library Company during the month of June 2019. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, May 7, 2020.

"Protestant Images of Other Religions in the Eighteenth Century" Mark Valeri, Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in Saint Louis Mark Valeri is the Reverend Priscilla Wood Neaves Distinguished Professor of Religion and Politics in the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in Saint Louis. Dr. Valeri has written about religion and the American Revolution and religion and commerce in colonial New England. His most recent book is Heavenly Merchandize: How Religion Shaped Commerce in Puritan America. He currently is working on conceptions of conversion, descriptions of other religions, and politics in Anglo-America from the English civil war through the American Revolution. Dr. Valeri was an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellow at the Library Company in 1994. This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, April 30, 2020.

"Mediterranean Quarantine: Perspectives of a Person of Privilege" Etta Madden, Assistant Department Head & Professor of English at Missouri State University Etta Madden is Assistant Department Head & Professor of English at Missouri State University. Dr. Madden has served in various administrative capacities and taught courses in American literature, women's literature & gender studies, utopian literature & culture, and research methods. Her publications include books and articles on religious communities (Puritans, Shakers, Quakers, & earth-centered New Age groups in Italy), women writers (including Philadelphia cookbook author Eliza Leslie), and the history of science. She is the recipient of two LCP fellowships: first in 2000, when she researched Benjamin Rush and temperance, and more recently in 2013, when she researched Anne Hampton Brewster – the subject of tonight's fireside chat, "Mediterranean Quarantine: Perspectives of a Person of Privilege." This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, Apr

"African Voices from the Transatlantic Slave Trade" Aaron Fogleman, Presidential Research Professor of History, Northern Illinois University Aaron Spencer Fogleman is a Distinguished Research Professor in the History Department at Northern Illinois University. His research and teaching interests include forced and free transatlantic migrations, revolution, slavery, religion, and gender in the Atlantic World and Early America. He previously taught at the University of South Alabama and has been a Guggenheim Fellow, Distinguished Fulbright Chair at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for History in Göttingen, a McNeil Center Fellow, and a Research Fellow at the Library Company of Philadelphia in the second year of the fellowship program (1988). This chat originally aired at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, April 16, 2020.

On April 7, the Library Company of Philadelphia hosted a candid conversation about lessons learned in the making of Ghost River: Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, the Library Company’s first graphic novel. This web-based symposium featured an invocation by Curtis Zunigha (Delaware Tribe of Indians); a panel discussion with project advisors, Ron Nash, Curtis Zunigha, and Daniel Richter; a conversation with author Lee Francis IV (Laguna Pueblo), artist Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva), and editor Will Fenton, moderated by Bill Adair; and an overview of the Ghost River digital edition (GhostRiver.org) with creators Nicole Scalessa, Ann McShane, and Will Fenton. In this month’s episode of Talking in the Library, Fenton shares some highlights from the afternoon. https://librarycompany.org/2020/04/24/redrawing-history-symposium/

Dr. Richard Bell (Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland) is one of a handful of scholars who has received multiple research fellowships from the Library Company – first as a doctoral candidate at Harvard in 2003 and 2004, and later as a faculty member at the University of Maryland in 2012 and 2013. In 2013, Dr. Bell began work on the project matured into the remarkable new volume Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home (Simon & Schuster, 2020). Stolen shines a light on what Dr. Bell terms the "Reverse Underground Railroad," a black market network of human traffickers and slave traders who stole away thousands of legally-free African Americans from families in free, northern cities, including Philadelphia. Deeply researched yet written in an accessible, direct voice, Stolen reveals the precarity of freedom through a microhistory of five boys kidnapped and transported to slaveholding states. Dr. Jill Lepore has called it a "heartbreaking and sear

In this special episode of Talking in the Library, Dr. Deirdre Cooper Owens, Director of the Program in African American History, speaks with Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson about her powerful new book, Force & Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). Force and Freedom provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Carter Jackson argues that through tactical violence black abolitionist leaders accomplished what white nonviolent abolitionists could not: creating the conditions that necessitated the Civil War. Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson is the Knafel Assistant Professor of the Humanities in the Department of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her research focuses on slavery and the abolitionists, violence as a political discourse, historical film, and black women’s history. David Walker, Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of th

At the 288th Annual Dinner, the Library Company of Philadelphia launched the First Biennial Innovation Award to recognize a project whose urgency renews disciplinary engagements with broader social issues, chafes against disciplinary boundaries, and whose content or forms might not be legible as scholarship within the university rewards structures. In this month's episode, Dr. Will Fenton spoke with co-recipients of First Biennial Innovation Award, Dr. Sari Altschuler and Dr. David Weimer. Sari Altschuler is Associate Professor of English, Associate Director of the Humanities Center, and Founding Director of Health, Humanities, and Society at Northeastern University. David Weimer earned his Ph.D. in English from Harvard University and has been the Librarian for Cartographic Collections and Learning at the Harvard Map Collection since 2016. Dr. Sari Altschuler and Dr. David Weimer's Touch This Page! Making Sense of the Ways We Read embodies work that critically and creatively expands the possibilities of hu