Philadelphia, the Revolutionary City

Philadelphia, the Revolutionary City explores the lived experiences of Philadelphians leading up to, during, and after the fight for independence, showcasing written documents as well as material culture, from diaries and journals to political cartoons, household objects, and personal items. Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same title, curated by the American Philosophical Society, the project traces key events through the late 1780s, and the impact they had on the daily lives of a diverse populace that made up the bustling colonial city of Philadelphia. The exhibition was inspired by an innovative digital archive launched by the American Philosophical Society (APS), the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP), and the Library Company of Philadelphia (LCP), in partnership with the Museum of the American Revolution and the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. The special collections at the APS, HSP, and LCP hold vast archival and manuscript materials documenting Philadelphia’s role in the American Revolution, which these institutions have committed to making available to the public online through this digital platform.

The book includes a fully-illustrated object checklist with information for each item as well as a curatorial statement about the project’s development. Additionally, it features three essays, one from each of the directors of the special collection libraries, focusing on key objects within each collection, plus an essay on the origins of the digital project and its ongoing work. Each essay offers a unique perspective on Philadelphia’s revolutionary history and a range of stories that can be found in these archives and on the digital portal.

Patrick Spero (Author)
Patrick Spero is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Philosophical Society. As a scholar of early American history, he specializes in the era of the American Revolution, and has published over a dozen essays and reviews on the topic. He is the author of Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776 (Norton, 2018), and of Frontier Country: The Politics of War in Early Pennsylvania, and The American Revolution Reborn: New Perspectives for the Twenty-First Century, both of which are available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Michelle Craig McDonald (Author)
Michelle Craig McDonald is the Librarian/Director of the Library and Museum at the American Philosophical Society, founded in 1743 and the oldest learned society in North America. The APS has more than 14 million pages of manuscripts and 300,000 printed volumes, with particular strengths in early American history, the history of science, and Native American and Indigenous cultures. Dr. McDonald earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan where she focused on business relationships and consumer behavior between North America and the Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries. She also holds a master’s in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Annapolis, a master’s in Museum Studies from George Washington University, and a bachelor’s in History from the University of California, Los Angeles, and was the Harvard-Newcomen Postdoctoral Fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. She is the co-author of Public Drinking in the Early Modern World: Voices from the Tavern (Pickering & Chatto/Routledge Press, 2011), and her current monograph, Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States, will be published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in spring 2025.

John Van Horne (Author)
John C. Van Horne is the Director of the Library Company (after having served from 1985 to 2014). Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1731, the Library Company is the nation’s oldest circulating library and holds one of the largest collections of primary sources documenting every aspect of American history and culture from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. Particular strengths include early American economy, African American history, women’s history, and visual culture. Dr. Van Horne holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Princeton University and a master’s degree and doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2005. His publications include a dozen articles, many volumes of The Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (Yale), and other edited works such as Religious Philanthropy and Colonial Slavery: The American Correspondence of the Associates of Dr. Bray, 1717-1777 (1985); The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America (with Jean Fagan Yellin, 1994); Traveling the Pennsylvania Railroad: The Photographs of William H. Rau (2002); and America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram (1699-1777) (with Nancy Hoffmann, 2004).

David R. Brigham (Author)
David R. Brigham is the President and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s largest and most important research libraries, with 21 million documents spanning government, law, banking and finance, women’s studies, ethnic studies, African American history and culture, family history, and arts and culture. He was previously the President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Priscilla Payne Hurd Executive Director of the Allentown Art Museum, and Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Curator of Art at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. Dr. Brigham studied English and Accounting at the University of Connecticut before pursuing a master’s degree in Museum Studies/American Civilization and a doctorate in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania, and is the editor of Two Hundred Years: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1824-2024 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) and author of Public Culture in the Early Republic: Peale’s Museum and Its Audience (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995).

Caroline O’Connell (Author)
Caroline O’Connell joined the American Philosophical Society as their Exhibitions Curator in July of 2024. As a curator, Caroline O’Connell’s work explores the intersections between design and material culture, with an emphasis on questions of provenance, civics, and public memory. She has held Curatorial positions at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, and Waddesdon Manor, and has contributed to exhibitions and publications at various institutions. Caroline previously served as First Vice President of the Metropolitan Chapter of the Victorian Society in America (VSNY). She is an alumna of the Attingham Summer School and holds an MA in Decorative Arts, Design History & Material Culture from Bard Graduate Center and a BA in Art History from Williams College.

Bayard Miller (Author)
Bayard L. Miller serves as the Associate Director of Digital Initiatives & Technology at the American Philosophical Society, where he has dedicated over a decade to advancing APS’s digital collections and overseeing significant digitization and digital humanities projects. He leads the Center for Digital Scholarship and sets the strategic direction for technology initiatives at APS. Bayard earned his M.A. in Public History and Archives from Temple University’s Center for Public History.