Philadelphia Histories
Philadelphia Histories
A Movement Without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia
Lisa Levenstein
This book “reframes highly charged debates over the origins of chronic African American poverty and the social policies and political struggles that led to the postwar urban crisis. [It] follows poor black women as they traveled from some of Philadelphia’s most impoverished neighborhoods into […] an unprecedented array of government benefits and services. With these resources came new constraints, as public officials frequently responded to women’s efforts by limiting benefits and attempting to control their personal lives.”
Collection 2016: Magdalen Society of Philadelphia Records
Processed by Leslie Hunt
“The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, founded in 1800, was formed to rescue and reform “fallen women” and was the first organization of its kind in the United States. [...] This collection includes records of the Magdalen Society from its formation in 1800 until 1918, when its name and mission changed.”
Colored Amazons: Crime, Violence, and Black Women in the City of Brotherly Love, 1880-1910
Kali N. Gross
"Colored Amazons is a groundbreaking historical analysis of the crimes, prosecution, and incarceration of black women in Philadelphia at the turn of the twentieth century."
Far from the Path of Virtue: Women on the Margins of Morality in Antebellum America
Madeline Kreider Carlson
“The city, as a place of moral corruption, temptation, and sin was a theme in many cautionary accounts of fallen women.” This page tells two of two cautionary tales that reflect these themes.
Free African Society
Elise Kammerer, Image Credit: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Read about “the Free African Society, [which was founded in the 16th century] as a nondenominational mutual aid society and the first dedicated to serving Philadelphia’s burgeoning free Black community.”
How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising
Edited by Christopher R. Rogers, Fajr Muhammad, and the Paul Robeson House & Museum
“An anthology-in-action of the culture and politics of Black liberation, rooted in Philadelphia’s Black Radical Tradition. [...] How We Stay Free collects and presents reflections and testimonies, prose and poetry from those on the frontlines to take stock of where the movement started, where it stands, and where we go from here.”
Liberty's Prisoners: Carceral Culture in Early America
Jen Manion
"Liberty's Prisoners examines how changing attitudes about work, freedom, property, and family shaped the creation of the penitentiary system in the United States. "
Magdalen Society
Marie Conn, Image Credit: Historical Society of Pennsylvania
This essay discusses “the Magdalen Society of Philadelphia[, which] was the first institution in the United States concerned with caring for and reforming “fallen women.”” The page also provides related readings and images.
To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS
Dan Royles
"Through interlinked stories from Philadelphia and Atlanta to South Africa and back again," To Make the Wounded Whole "documents the diverse, creative, and global work of African American activists in the decades-long battle against HIV/AIDS."
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval
Saidiya V. Hartman
“Through a melding of history and literary imagination [...] Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. Wayward Lives recreates the experience of young urban black women who desired an existence qualitatively different than the one that had been scripted for them [...] and whose intimate revolution was apprehended as crime and pathology.”