Join us for America 250 at Penn events and exhibits hosted by participating partners across campus.
The session provides a brief, hands-on demonstration of historic printing practices, allowing participants to produce a themed broadside while engaging with material culture from the Revolutionary Era.
Hosted by Common Press
Penn Professors Emma Hart, Sophia Rosenfeld, and Duncan Watts address the power and impact of Thomas Paine's revolutionary pamphlet, 250 years after its publication.
Hosted by Kislak Center
Reinterpreting the Declaration: A Creative Typesetting Workshop gives participants a hands-on opportunity to work with the original text of the Declaration of Independence, choosing whether to preserve, alter, or omit the words in their assigned section. Hosted by Common Press at Penn Libraries, the workshop explores how meaning shifts through the act of typesetting and invites participants to rethink this historic document through the lens of printmaking.
Hosted by Common Press
Dr. Emily Sneff, a leading expert on the history of the Declaration of Independence, will share some of the stories behind the first printings of the founding document of the United States.
Hosted by the Kislak Center
Adventive America places the forthcoming 250th anniversary of the United States into a broader international context by examining plants and their agency in nation-building. This nontraditional lens explores collectors, collections, and global botanical exchanges between the United States, Indigenous nations, Britain, Spain, Japan, and China, from the early American republic to the present day. Whether shipped in transatlantic Bartram’s boxes in the eighteenth century, showcased at the 1876 Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, emergent in the weedy ballast grounds along the Delaware River, or exchanged as part of the traditional seed-saving practices of Indigenous peoples or immigrant communities, plants from around the globe serve as proxies for our own international migrations and as carriers of cultural meaning in our landscapes. “Following the plants” reveals fraught layers of transnational and ethnobotanical relations and upends false binaries of what it means to be native or alien, exotic or adventive, in the ongoing construction of nationhood.
Hosted by the Kleinman Energy Forum, Fisher Fine Arts Library
Come read the Constitution together—not as a lecture, but as a conversation. Engage with faculty experts, students, and staff in an interactive, participatory reading of the U.S. Constitution and a guided conversation about how its interpretation has evolved over time. We’ll examine how constitutional principles continue to shape and be shaped by today’s most urgent policy debates.
Join us for a reflective conversation exploring what it means to reclaim legacy through the lens of a descendent of Menokin's enslaved community. SAS-OAEE's Program Coordinator, Shani Saunders will share her journey of connection, learning, and healing through the Menokin Descendant Collective and present a documentary trailer.
Hosted by School of Arts & Sciences, Office of Academic Excellence & Engagement
“A violinist who can do anything,” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Johnny Gandelsman, a Grammy® Award-winning member of the Silkroad Ensemble, performs This is America, featuring works by U.S. composers including the world premiere of a Penn Live Arts commission by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Tyshawn Sorey.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
In 2026 the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania will open its year-long exhibition, Nursing the Revolution. To help mark this event and in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, the Bates Center invites scholars and professionals working in areas related to early American care work, nursing, medicine, and the Revolutionary War to join us for a special symposium.
Hosted by Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing at Penn Nursing
See how rags from our community cloth collection are processed in preparation for papermaking. Stop by the Common Press to participate in removing buttons, tags, and zippers and cutting the fabric into tiny pieces.
Hosted by Common Press
What does American Jewish history look like on the 250th birthday of the United States? The history of Jews in North America predates the birth of the country, yet the academic field of study is relatively new. "America's Jewish Questions at 250 Years" interrogates the foundational questions that have defined American Jewish history, while asking how the field is changing amid today's roiling debates about liberalism, democracy, pluralism, and so much more.
Cosponsored by the Department of History, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
Hosted by The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
You are invited to the McNeil Center for Early American Studies on Thursday, February 26 at 3:30pm for a seminar by Wendy Bellion entitled "Rachel Weeping: Painting Loss in Revolutionary America.” Dr. Bellion is Professor of Art History and Sewell C. Biggs Chair in American Art at the University of Delaware. She is the author of Citizen Spectator (OIEAHC and UNC Press, 2011) and Iconoclasm in New York (PSUP, 2019), and editor of several books and journals. Reception following.
Hosted by McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Please join us to mark the opening of The Time to Right All Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in a
Revolutionary Age, a new exhibition devoted to the revolutions of the 1790s that stretched from France to the
Caribbean and had profound impacts on Philadelphia and the United States.
Hosted by Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts
You are invited to the McNeil Center for Early American studies for a seminar by Dr. Andrew David Edwards. Dr. Edwards is the Lecturer in Early American History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He received his PhD and MA with distinction from Princeton University in 2018. Before arriving at St Andrews, he served as the inaugural fellow in the Global History of Capitalism at the University of Oxford.
A first-generation college graduate and native of rural Humboldt County, California, Edwards has lived and worked in China, the United Kingdom, and New York City. After a decade as a journalist and baker, he graduated from the Columbia University School of General Studies, summa cum laude and phi beta kappa, in 2011 aged 30. He lives in Fife with his wife and two children. Money and the Making of the American Revolution is his first book.
Hosted by McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Join us for a drop-in Open Studio at Common Press to print a broadside (a single-sided print meant for public display) about the Lenape, the original users of the land around the Historic Rittenhouse Town papermill.
Hosted by Common Press
“One of the most vital and original ensembles on the American music scene,” (The New York Times) Alarm Will Sound is joined by Bora Yoon for American Stories, a collection of bold, contemporary works that reflect the vast, evolving landscape of our country’s identity.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
Stop by Historic Rittenhouse Town to see how rags are beat into paper pulp using the Hollander beater at the studio, and see how paper pulp making has evolved over the last 250 years.
Hosted by The Studio at Historic Rittenhouse Town
If scholars have long argued over the shape and content of Jewish liberalism, this talk will instead ask: what forms of illiberalism were central to mid-twentieth century American Jews?
Over and against the liberal embrace of illiberal anticommunist politics in the United States, it will explore how American Jewish radicals continued to envision and advocate for progressive American Jewish culture, one that would not only resist McCarthyism but also maintain space for Jewish difference in America. Focusing on the writers and scholars affiliated with the communist publication Jewish Life, it will excavate the heated intra-Jewish contestations over politics, identity, and culture at midcentury.
Rennie Harris, “the most brilliant hip-hop choreographer in America” (The New Yorker) and our 25/26 season artist-in-residence, returns with the world premiere of Losing My Religion. Set to a chilling soundscape mixed live by a DJ, this commissioned work explores the world’s turmoil through the lens of street dance and hip hop.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
In 1765, Philadelphia became home to the nation’s first medical school, setting the standard for training America’s earliest physicians. More than 250 years later, the Perelman School of Medicine continues to blend innovation and tradition, shaping the future of healthcare.
This event will feature a panel discussion with undergrad and graduate student leaders about their experiences with different forms of Community Engagement Scholarship, including Academically Based Community Services, designed to realize Franklin’s founding vision for Penn. Participants will be invited to participate in small group conversations about how to achieve Franklin’s vision.
Hosted by Netter Center for Community Partnerships, Student Committee on Undergraduate Education
Join us for a drop-in Open Studio at Common Press to print a broadside (a single-sided print meant for public display) exploring a key ingredient used to produce ink, fabric, and paper during the Revolutionary era: flax!
Hosted by Common Press
Cheer loud for history! Franklin Field was the nation’s first stadium, home to roaring crowds, thrilling games and unforgettable moments. Philly built the stage for American sports.
April Firsts are sponsored by The Bellwether District.
A conference on the revolutionary upheavals that shook metropolitan France and the French colonies and populations in North America, from the late eighteenth through the early nineteenth century. Held in conjunction with the exhibit The Time to Right all Wrongs: France, Haiti, and Philadelphia in A Revolutionary Age.
Hosted by Kislak Center
This talk will explore the ways in which anxieties about American Jewish belonging in the years surrounding World War I and World War II shaped the development of the Yiddish press, as well as how that history has been remembered in retrospect.
Hosted by The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Join Marc Stein, Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Professor of History, San Franciso State University, in a lecture about his new book on the history of the nation's 200th birthday.
Hosted by Kislak Center
Come hear the tale of an enduringly popular song from Haiti "Lisette quitté la plaine," interwoven with anthem parodies, folk songs, and solo-piano pieces.
Hosted by Kislak Center
See the work of Common Press during our residency at the papermill at Historic Rittenhouse Town where we will be turning the cloth collected during our community rag collection into large sheets of handmade paper.
Hosted by Common Press
Trumpeter Delbert Anderson is “at the forefront of a vibrant Native American jazz scene.” (The New York Times) In his Philadelphia debut, Anderson blends Diné tradition with jazz and funk in the world premiere commissioned work, Beyond Belief, exploring Navajo history and the tribe’s relationship with America.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
Join us for a drop-in Open Studio at Common Press to print a broadside (a single-sided print meant for public display) reflecting on important aspects of labor history during the early days of the United States of America.
Hosted by Common Press
Visit us on Weitzman Plaza where we will be pulling sheets of paper from the pulp made from the cloth collected during our community rag collection. This handmade paper will be used to print copies of the Declaration of Independence at Common Press during Summer 2026.
Hosted by Common Press
This conference will bring together PARC Associates and aging researchers from across Penn and will include guests from other external aging centers. The Aging Retreat aims to foster collaborations for innovative aging research, provide networking opportunities, and encourage work that advances the PARC Research Themes.
Hosted by Population Aging Research Center
Lana Dee Povitz offers a revised genealogy of the American Jewish left, one that centers feminist Jews who have worked at the intersection of social justice movements. She argues for the importance of coalitional feminism in understanding some of the institutional transformations underway in contemporary American Jewish life.
Hosted byHerbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
The first edition of the Declaration of Independence was typeset and printed within 12 hours starting on July 4, 1776. To honor the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, Common Press will host a 12 hour, two day community typesetting event during which all are invited to hand-set metal type to help create a historically-accurate replica. The final form of metal type will remain available for printing on our 19th-century hand press through September 2026.
Hosted by Common Press
Visit Common Press during the Summer 2026 to print a copy of the Declaration of Independence for yourself. The composition will be set in Caslon metal type and ready to print on our 1889 cast-iron handpress. This hour-long demonstration is open to all, and we welcome participants of all ages and backgrounds. Groups of up to 20 people are welcome!
Hosted by Common Press
This lecture uncovers the history of Schocken Books, one of the mid-twentieth century's most consequential publishers, to evaluate the development of American Black-Jewish relations. It establishes how Schocken Books was shaped by its German-Jewish origins and how it developed to become an unlikely source of advice on American race relations.!
Hosted by Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
"One of the great companies of the world," (The New York Times) the iconic Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates a century of groundbreaking artistry with classic works, a Philadelphia premiere by Hope Boykin, and a world premiere commission by Tommie-Waheed Evans, performed with dancers from PHILADANCO.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
Firsthand accounts of the American Revolution provide historians, museums, and historic sites with critical details for understanding what it was like to experience independence. To mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Historic Trappe, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, and Ursinus College are partnering to convene a symposium, “Experiencing Independence: Eyewitness Accounts of the American Revolution.”
This symposium will explore the diaries, journals, letters, and material culture made or used by people in the mid-Atlantic region from 1760–1790. The panels will explore family dynamics in the midst of political upheaval, wartime experiences of soldiers and civilians, accounts from different religious perspectives, and new approaches to non-English sources on the American Revolution.
Photo description: Muhlenberg House, Trappe, PA. Photo credit: Dave Holsten.
Hosted by Historic Trappe, the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Ursinus College
Honor the nation’s first inhabitants and celebrate the vibrant cultures and enduring traditions of Indigenous communities rooted in Philadelphia. Discover the Penn Museum’s new Native North America Gallery, shaped in collaboration with Indigenous curators.
Higher learning, Philly style. The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) claimed the title of the nation’s first university. With innovation baked into its DNA, Penn launched generations of leaders. Knowledge has a home, and it’s right here!
Philadelphia made history in 1855 by opening the nation’s first hospital devoted exclusively to children. For more than 170 years, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has combined groundbreaking research with heartfelt care both within and outside its walls — a tradition of healing that continues to inspire today.
Before smartphones and laptops, there was ENIAC. Born at Penn, the world’s first programmable, electronic computer crunched numbers and changed everything. From circuits to cyberspace, it all began in Philly.
December Firsts are sponsored by Fulton Bank.
The Sachs Program for Arts Innovation, The Penn Art Collection, and Penn Libraries are pleased to present We the People: Sam Maitin, an exhibition of selected works by the celebrated Philadelphia artist, on view at the Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, October 15, 2025 through February 21, 2026.
Arts Lounge at the Annenberg
Showcasing more than 250 items from the Penn Museum’s North American collections alongside contemporary Native art pieces, this 2,000-sq.-ft. interactive exhibition will share complex histories and living relationships of Indigenous peoples to their ancestral homelands.
Explore the overlooked yet essential role of nurses during the American Revolution, whose vital work helped shape early American healthcare.
Hosted by Bates Center
The Shakers: A World in the Making explores the design legacy of the Shakers, a religious group whose values of community, labor, and equality shaped their furniture, architecture, and everyday objects. Through works by contemporary artists influenced by the Shakers, alongside original Shaker-made pieces, the exhibition considers how their design principles remain relevant today.
By pairing historical artifacts with newly commissioned works, the exhibition invites reflection on how Shaker ideals continue to inform conversations around inclusion, gender, and intentional living in the 21st century.
This exhibition was organized by the Vitra Design Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and the Wüstenrot Foundation in collaboration with the Shaker Museum.
As the nation prepares to commemorate America's 250th, this exhibit will look back on the bicentennial, sharing perspectives from the groups who raised their voices in protest and critiqued a wholly celebratory approach to American history.
See a selection of photographs by Academy Award-winning cinematographer and Penn alumnus Phil Parmet, who documented life in Haiti after the fall of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in 1986.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
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.
Hosted by Kislak Center
Informed by current scholarship and richly illustrated with full-color photographs and maps, The Greater Philadelphia Region and its companion volumes Greater Philadelphia and the Nation and Greater Philadelphia and the World bring to the public an up-to-date, diverse history of Philadelphia across its many dimensions.
The Equity in Action Visiting Scholars program (EAV Scholars) is a new initiative by the Office of Social Equity & Community that aims to strengthen the Penn community by hosting local scholars, activists and community organizers that use the arts, lecture, and dialogue to shine a light on issues of social justice. Scholars from diverse backgrounds and disciplines will engage in research, teaching, and conversation, and are selected based on their expertise in areas such as activism, community organizing, criminal justice reform, and gun violence prevention. In keeping with Penn’s ongoing commitment to engaging with important societal issues, at the heart of this initiative is a “call to action” giving attendees an opportunity to engage the broader community in meaningful ways with a deepened articulation of opportunities for social impact.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — what do these foundational ideals mean in a 21st century context? In a range of new works and contemporary reinterpretations, the artists featured in our America Unfinished season will illuminate our ongoing struggle to fulfill the promises made by our nation's founders 250 years ago. How do these principles resonate in the America of today, and what do they reveal about our evolving democracy? Join us as an exciting collective of American artists reflect on this pivotal moment in our country’s legacy.
Hosted by Penn Live Arts
As part of the Penn Libraries America 250 programming, join the Common Press for a series of monthly public events exploring the typesetting, printing, and paper-making involved in the production of the Declaration of Independence.
Hosted by Common Press
EAS Miscellany, the digital companion to Early American Studies, is seeking qualified reviewers at all levels (graduate students, public humanities professionals, community college instructors, tenure-track faculty, and tenured faculty) to complete online reviews of digital and physical exhibits on a wide range of topics relating to the early American studies. As sites of interpretation, scholarship, and debate, public exhibits raise important questions for our field as we approach the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence: How do curators frame contested histories and conflicting narratives? How do public and private institutions adapt and respond to funding cuts, ideological shifts, and other external constraints? In what ways do digital platforms expand, democratize, or complicate access to archives and artifacts? How do exhibits balance scholarly rigor alongside accessibility for general audiences? By publishing thoughtful reviews, we seek to create a venue where early Americanists can evaluate and reflect on the current state of the public humanities field.
Hosted by Early American Studies Miscellany
This two-day conference highlights the visual documentary interventions of Sol Worth and Harvey Finkle in Philadelphia during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Hosted by the Kislak Center
To coincide with the 250th anniversary of the US Navy and Marine Corps, this conference will bring together scholars from the whole sweep of US history to discuss these branches of America’s military forces in their various contexts.
Hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies
This fall, TIP is collaborating with the Penn Press and Penn GSE to offer a special set of workshops on Philadelphia, in preparation for the 2026 Semiquincentennial, or 250th anniversary, of the founding of the United States. These workshops will be led by authors of the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, a resource the Penn Press is distributing free to schools in the School District of Philadelphia. Workshops with the Liberty Bell symbol are part of this series.
In all TIP workshops, teachers acquire cutting-edge knowledge from university professors and write lesson plans based on the material they have learned. Applications open May 5 and the deadline will be October 3.
The exhibition Revolution at Penn? examines conflicts around the formation, structure, and mission of the university in the era of the American Revolution.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
Panels and roundtables will propose new frameworks for comprehending the earliest period of European colonization in America and novel arguments for scholarly attention to this era.
Hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies
In conjunction with the exhibit Revolution at Penn?, learn about the significance of Philadelphia’s coffeehouses as major sites of political activity and debate in the decade leading up to the Declaration of Independence.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
Hear songs and instrumental selections from the music room of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis Lewis, George Washington’s step-granddaughter.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
Starting at the site of the University of Pennsylvania's original college campus at 4th and Arch Streets, this walking tour of Old City will bring to life stories of the places and people associated with Penn in the 18th century.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
In conjunction with the National Library of Medicine traveling exhibit Politics of Yellow Fever in Alexander Hamilton’s America, on view in the Holman Biotech Commons from February 5 to March 15, this walking tour will take visitors to various sites related to Philadelphia’s 1793 yellow fever epidemic.
Hosted by Holman Biotech Commons
In conjunction with the National Library of Medicine travelling exhibition Politics of Yellow Fever in Alexander Hamilton’s America, this panel brings historians and physicians together to explore and discuss two important epidemics in Philadelphia.
Using the historical example of the 1793 yellow fever epidemic and the contemporary example of the COVID-19 pandemic, this program will bring together historians and physicians to examine the evidence around how epidemics unfold and who is held accountable as they do.
Hosted by the Kislak Center and Holman Biotech Commons
To celebrate the opening of Revolution at Penn?, exhibition curators John Pollack and J.M. Duffin will give a tour of the exhibition, followed by a panel talk exploring Philadelphia and Penn at the time of the Revolution.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
David Waldstreicher, Distinguished Professor of History at the CUNY Graduate Center, will inaugurate the new Benjamin Franklin Distinguished Lectures series November 4-7 on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus.
Hosted by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies
A collaboration between the John Carter Brown Library on the campus of Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies and Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts.
The conference is chaired jointly by Emma Hart of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, Sean Quimby of Penn Libraries, and Karin Wulf of the JCB.
Hosted by the Kislak Center
Undergraduates from English Professor Zita Nunes's course Community Writing: Post-COVID University will present their work as part of the America 250 at Penn series, leading up to Penn's 2026 commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries
This one-day forum is an opportunity for area repositories and historic institutions to learn about each other’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Hosted by the Penn Libraries and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Rutgers University
In conversation with Dean John L. Jackson, Jr. (Annenberg School for Communication), Dunbar will discuss the central role played by Black women in the founding of the nation and their centuries’ long agitation and activism to force the nation to live up to its promises.
Hosted by the Kislak Center
Phillip Mead, Museum of the American Revolution
Philip Mead will discuss the initial plans for the Museum of the American Revolution’s exhibition to mark the 250th anniversary of 1776.
McNeil Center for Early American Studies and/or Virtual
Bringing together voices from across the educational spectrum, from K-12 teachers to university and public historians, Teaching Independence will consider the challenges of teaching the Declaration of Independence, the history of the American Revolution, and the nation's founding, in the 21st century.
