Join Matthew Skic, curator of Museum of the American Revolution’s Black Founders, to learn how archives help shape a museum exhibition.

Wednesday, October 4, 4:00pm-5:00pm
Historical Society of Pennsylvania
1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia Pa 19107
$10
Virtual
RSVP info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/curatorial-talk-black-founders-and-archives-tickets-709675958897?aff=archivesmonth
More info: https://www.portal.hsp.org/upcoming-events

The documents held in archives like HSP not only provide valuable information for researchers, the objects themselves often become valuable storytelling tools in museum exhibitions. Matthew Skic, Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum of the American Revolution, will share the research and discoveries behind the Museum’s special exhibit Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia. The exhibition brings together – for the first time – more than 100 historical artifacts and documents to tell the inspiring story of free Black Philadelphian James Forten and his remarkable family as they battled slavery and defended freedom from the Revolutionary era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. The exhibition runs through November 26 at the Museum of the American Revolution.

This talk will be held onsite at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street in Philadelphia, and will also be livestreamed via Zoom webinar.

Matthew Skic is a contributing author to Two Hundred Years: The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1824-2024. Published in conjunction with HSP’s anniversary, it is the first book to survey the more than twenty-one million documents, newspapers, graphics, and rare books in its archive. The book presents one hundred essays highlighting carefully preserved artifacts, spanning the seventeenth to the late twentieth century; it will be available for purchase in early fall 2023.