The David Center is launching its new Seminar on the American Revolution on March 24 2021 with Jonathan D. Sassi (College of Staten Island and the Graduate Center, City University of New York) speaking on “The New Jersey Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery: A Reappraisal." To register and to see the Spring 2021 schedule, click here.
As the United States nears the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence, the David Center for the American Revolution at the American Philosophical Society is organizing an international conference on “The Meanings of Independence,” to be held in Philadelphia in October 2021. The conference aims to convene leading and emerging scholars of the era, museum and library professionals, leaders of cultural institutions, teachers at all levels, public intellectuals, and engaged members of the public for two days of discussion about the meaning and import of the American Revolution in the twenty-first century. Learn more here.
If you missed the January 14 virtual discussion with Carla J. Mulford on Benjamin Franklin's Political Science, you can watch the video here. The recording of the January 27 virtual discussion with Michael Hattem on Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution, along with extended Q&A, is available via the event page.
The application window is now closed for David Center Short-Term Resident Research Fellowships and the Swan Foundation Short-Term Resident Research Fellowship for Revolutionary-Era Material Culture for 2021-2022. Long and short-term David Center Fellowships will be announced later in the spring. Scroll down on this page for more information.
On August 10th, the David Library announced its intention to sell Buckstone Farm, the 118-acre property in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania that has been home to the David Library since 1974 to the Heritage Conservancy, a non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve and protect the natural and historic heritage of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). You can read more about this development here and download the announcement in the right hand column.
Learn more here about the major NEH CARES grant received in June 2020 for the project Benjamin Franklin’s American Enlightenment: Documenting Early American Science at the American Philosophical Society. The project involves the creation or completion of several digital projects related to eighteenth-century Philadelphia.
On Thursday, July 9th, Gaye Wilson, author of Jefferson on Display: Attire, Etiquette, and the Art of Presentation, gave a talk on her new book: "A Final Image: The Thomas Sully Portrait of Thomas Jefferson." A recording of Gaye's talk and extended Q&A can be found here.
If you missed our virtual program on May 13 on Spain's involvement in the American Revolution with Gabriel Paquette and Gonzalo M. Quintero Saravia, you can watch the recorded version by clicking the right hand link on the page here.
The Sol Feinstone Manuscript Collection, the Sol Feinstone Slavery Collection, and the rare books collection from the David Library are now accessible at the APS. The finding aid for the Manuscript collection can be found here and the Slavery collection here. You can search through the rare books in the APS online catalogue here and can be requested through the AEON paging system. The extensive microfilm collection will be available for search very shortly.
Congratulations to the inaugural awardees of the David Center for the American Revolution Short-Term Resident Research Fellowships has just been announced. These grants continue the 30-year tradition of the David Library supporting new scholarship on the American Revolution and the Founding Era. We look forward to welcoming Ben Bankhurst (Shepherd University), Christopher Pearl (Lycoming University), Meg Roberts (University of Cambridge), and Robert Wright (Augustana University) once the Library reopens!
Read recent articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Metro Weekly about the partnership between the American Philosophical Society and the David Library of the American Revolution.
Read the letter that recently went out to the David Library community about the transition to the new David Center at the APS to the right.
Read about the partnership between the David Library of the American Revolution and the APS: "Unparalleled Research Center on the American Revolution Coming to the APS"