CIVIL WAR MUSEUM
of Philadelphia

You are viewing 4 posts for 2023

Celebrating Juneteenth


A City Divided: The Civil War, Philadelphia, and the Union League

 A City Divided: The Civil War, Philadelphia, and the Union League is currently on display in The Sir John Templeton Heritage Center through June 2024. The Heritage Center is home to the Legacy Foundation; the space is a celebration of the rich history, heritage and traditions of The Union League of Philadelphia, and serves as a portal to the community. The Legacy Foundation encourages members, scholars, students and others to view, research and interact with the history and collections through both the rotating exhibitions and the research center. The Legacy Foundation is dedicated to the same tenets of freedom and free enterprise upon which the Union League was founded, and through historic preservation, education, and scholarship promotes these values and ideals, inspiring more educated, engaged, and responsible citizens.

 
Philadelphia during the American Civil War was a city divided.  Many supported the South and slavery – they openly called for Lincoln to quit the war. In this desperate moment, The Union League of Philadelphia was founded.  Its goal was to make the case that Philadelphians support Lincoln, Union, and abolition.  The success of the League created a patriotic movement that spread throughout the North and made certain that the Union would be preserved.
 
Public Hours:
Tuesday and Thursday, 3:00–6:00pm
Second Saturday of every month, 1:00–4:00pm
To visit during these hours, please ring the doorbell at the street level door on Broad Street.
 
For more information:
The Union League Legacy Foundation
The Heritage Center of the Union League
140 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19102
www.ullegacy.org
call: 215.587.5596
email: legacyfoundation@unionleague.org
 
Tags: Collection

Slavery and Liberty at America’s Founding

In honor of Black History Month, on February 28 at 7:00pm, the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia proudly partners with the National Constitution Center and with the generous support of  Citizens in presenting:  Historians Harold Holzer, author of several books on President Abraham Lincoln, including Lincoln: How Abraham Lincoln Ended Slavery in America; and Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition; join Edward Larson for a conversation on Larson’s new book, American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765-1795, to explore the paradox of liberty and slavery in Revolutionary America through the Civil War era. 

Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates.

Tags: Slavery

"Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad"

The Civil War Museum of Philadelphia proudly sponsors on Thursday, January 26, LancasterHistory's first Regional History Colloquium of 2023 featuring Towson University’s Dr. Andrew Diemer discussing his latest book, Vigilance: The Life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad.

William Still was born free in New Jersey, the youngest son of parents who escaped from slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, Still organized an abolitionist network that aided hundreds of freedom seekers who passed through Pennsylvania. Still published the stories of these freedom seekers in one of the most important manuscripts to document that secretive network. Towson University professor Dr. Andrew Diemer joins LancasterHistory to discuss his new biography of William Still, the Father of the Underground Railroad.

Andrew Diemer, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of History at Towson University, where he has taught since 2011. He received his Ph.D. from Temple University, and is the author of The Politics of Black Citizenship: Free African Americans in the Mid-Atlantic Borderland, 1817-1863 (University of Georgia Press, 2016). He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


Tags: Slavery