Programs for the 2026-27 Season

Unless otherwise specified, all meetings will be held between 5:30-7:30 P.M. at

THE ROSENBACH MUSEUM AND LIBRARY

2008-2010 Delancey Place

Philadelphia, PA 19103


Thursday, August 13, 2026: Exhibition Tour: The Time to Right All Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in a Revolutionary Age

Join Lynne Farrington and John Pollack on Thursday, August 13, at 5:30 pm for a special tour of their 2026 exhibition, The Time to Right All Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in a Revolutionary Age, in the Goldstein Gallery of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

This exhibition surveys the revolutions that shook the Atlantic world in the 1790s, and the profound changes that resulted, from France to Haiti to Philadelphia. These global upheavals generated profound reflections about freedom and rights, government and liberty, rebellion and violence, race and gender, money and media. Perhaps it was a moment when the social order could be rebuilt on new, more equitable foundations—"the time to right all wrongs,” in the words of Haitian deputy Etienne Mentor.


September 8, 2026: Pre-Season Event: Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts Tour

October 13, 2026: Stacey Peeples (Pennsylvania Hospital Museum), “The New Medical Museum at Pennsylvania Hospital, Including the Historic Library and Surgical Theater.”

November 10, 2026: Jordan Smith (Widener University), “The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity”

December 8, 2026: Members’ Show and Tell

January 12, 2027: Cellia Caust-Ellenbogen (Swarthmore College), Jack McCarthy (Project Director, Poquessing Trail of History), John Pollack (University of Pennsylvania), “What Was Purvis Reading? The Books of A Great Abolitionist” from the Byberry Library Company at Byberry Friends Meeting

February 9, 2027: Christian Lehmann (Bard High School Early College), “Dickens and the Classics”

March 9, 2027: Christine Neulieb and Feliza Casano (Lanternfish Press), “Publishing the Rare and Strange: A Conversation with Lanternfish Press”

April 13, 2027: Alexander Ames (Rosenbach Museum & Library), “Starstruck: Mercedes de Acosta, William H. McCarthy, Jr., and the Making of the Rosenbach's Once-Secret Archive of Queer Hollywood's Golden Age”

May 11, 2027: David Gary (American Philosophical Society), “The Material Foundation of a Federalist Statesman: Rufus King's Library and the Intellectual World of the Early American Republic”

Members, please RSVP.

Non-Members, please REQUEST an invitation by writing philobiblonclub1893 at gmail dot com.