Spring 2019

During the 2019 Spring Presentation, students shared their research further exploring slave ownership through slave-owning alumni and exploring the university’s early fundraising efforts. The students also studied campus rhetoric about slavery in the forms of faculty commencement speeches and student groups and their debates, publications, members, and demographics of students who served in the military. Further research into the medical school has expanded into the way Penn functioned as an academic institution. Researchers focused on professors and students in the early medical school, and even identified archival errors that obscured accomplishments of the first African American medical professional to receive an education at Penn. Students also studied the collections of crania and other specimens and the source of cadavers used in lectures. Additional research was conducted on the various medical literature published by graduates, professors, and alumni in the form of graduate theses, medical journals, and books.

Using these methods, students explored the diverse ways Penn certified and produced knowledge in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries. Through their efforts, the Penn & Slavery Project has further identified ways that Penn and Penn’s alumni used profits from the slave trade to help the university remain financially secure. And after acquiring this wealth, Penn professors later served as the source of campus dialogues about slavery, and race science in the medical field.

Student Reports

Symposium & Presentations

Much of the 2019 Spring Presentation was recorded and uploaded to the Penn Libraries youtube channel. The four video recordings are available below. Additionally, a copy of the symposium’s two-day schedule is attached.

View Detailed Schedule

Wednesday, April 3, 2019

4:00-4:15 pm | WELCOME

Dr. Wendell Pritchett, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania

4:15- 5:45 p.m | INTRODUCTION

William Noel, Director of the Kislak Center & the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

| PLENARY ROUNDTABLE

Kathleen Brown, David Boies Professor of History; Director of the Alice Paul Center for Research on Gender, Sexuality & Women; Director of the Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania

Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights; Professor of Africana Studies; Director of the Program on Race, Science & Society, University of Pennsylvania

Deirdre Cooper Owens, Associate Professor of History, Queens College, CUNY; Director for the Program in African American History, Library Company of Philadelphia

5:45- 6:45 pm | RECEPTION

Thursday, April 4, 2019

9:30- 10:00 am | REGISTRATION & COFFEE

10:00-11:15 am | SESSION 1

Penn & Slavery Project Research Findings
Presentation of research conducted by current undergraduate seminar students

11:15-11:30 am | COFFEE BREAK

11:30- 12:30 pm | SESSION 2

Working on the Penn & Slavery Project: Current Research Areas, Strategies, and Ideas for the Future

Moderator: Daniel Richter, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History; Richard S. Dunn Director of the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Arielle Julia Brown, Cultural Planning Consultant for the Penn & Slavery Project; Public Programs Developer, Penn Museum

Alexis Broderick Neumann, Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow for the Penn & Slavery Project and the University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Paul Mitchell, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

VanJessica Gladney, Public History Fellow for the Penn & Slavery Project

Breanna Moore, Independent Scholar

12:30-1:00 pm | SESSION 3

Reimagining Penn’s History through Augmented Reality

VanJessica Gladney, Public History Fellow for the Penn & Slavery Project

Laurie Allen, Director of Digital Scholarship, University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Paul Farber, Artistic Director of Monument Lab; Lecturer in Fine Arts/Urban Studies, University of Pennsylvania

1:00-2:30 pm | LUNCH (provided)

2:30- 4:30 pm | SESSION 4

Slavery and Medicine: What was Penn’s Role?

Moderator: Dorothy Roberts,George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology; Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights; Professor of Africana Studies; Director of the Program on Race, Science & Society, University of Pennsylvania

Daina Ramey Berry, Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin

Sowande’ Mustakeem, Associate Professor of History and of African and African-American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

Rana Hogarth, Assistant Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Christopher Willoughby, Lapidus Center Postdoctoral Fellow, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library