The Story of Philadelphia’s Chinatown

Dr. Cecilia Chien explores the history of Asian Americans in Philadelphia from the 1800s to the present. There are myriad Asian American communities. They differ in country of origin, ethnicity, language, class, religion, gender, and more. From the colonial era to the present, generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have transformed the face […]

For the Union: Launching Lincoln’s Quest for the Presidency in Chester County

The book "For the Union" tells the story of how Quaker abolition, a hanging, a slave riot, and a newspaper in West Chester helped launch Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign in 1860. The first biography of the presidential candidate was published at what is now known as the Lincoln Building in downtown West Chester. It ultimately […]

Philadelphia Industrialists and Their Country Estates, 1875-1930 (virtual)

Pew. Luden. Berwind. Clothier. Wyeth. Dorrance. Coxe. Schmidt. This talk by former Winterthur Estate Historian Jeff Groff focuses on leading families and the businesses that once made Philadelphia known as the workshop of the world, from railroads, to coal, to canned soup. It highlights their Main Line and Chester County houses including many that may […]

Threats on the Seas: Pirates and the Delaware Valley (virtual)

Pirates are often the subject of films and books that depict them as either dashing swashbucklers or dastardly outlaws, but these popular depictions obscure the reality of pirates in the Delaware Valley. Piracy emerged as a major concern in the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and Pennsylvanians routinely contended with pirates, […]

Standing on the Border of Two Worlds: The Nature of Cemetery Landscapes (virtual)

Oaklands Cemetery has served as one of West Chester’s primary memorial landscapes since 1854, but it also holds a place within the larger world of well-designed garden cemeteries that redefined the burial ground during the middle decades of the 19th century. This talk will provide a historical framework to help us better understand cemeteries like […]