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The McNeil Center
Where is Early America? | 1-3 May 2025

The McNeil Center for Early American Studies is pleased to announce a state of the field conference, to be held in May of 2025.

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Upcoming Events



The Illusion of Freedom: Slavery in the Northern States

Conference
Oct 3, 2024 - Oct 5, 2024 at -

The McNeil Center is proud to be a sponsor of the 8th national Slave Dwelling Project Conference October 3-5 in Philadelphia. This year’s theme, The Illusion of Freedom: Slavery in the Northern States seeks to explore…



Paradise of Women: Sex, Labor, and Utopianism at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

Friday Seminar
Elizabeth Hewitt, The Ohio State University
Oct 4, 2024 at - | Location: McNeil Center for Early American Studies, 3355 Woodland Walk/Zoom

Elizabeth Hewitt is Professor and Chair in the Department of English at The Ohio State University, Columbus. Her most recent books include Speculative Fictions: Explaining the Economy in the Early United States (2020)…



“Our Coming to America”: Remembering the Middle Passage in the Colored Conventions

Brown Bag Session
Courtney Murray, Pennsylvania State University
Oct 9, 2024 at - | Location: McNeil Center, Room 105/Zoom

Courtney Murray is a Dual-Title PhD Candidate in the Departments of English and African American Studies at Pennsylvania State University and a #DigBlk Scholar at the Center for Black Digital Research (CBDR). Her…

About the McNeil Center

Established as the Philadelphia Center for Early American Studies in 1978, and renamed in honor of its benefactor Robert L. McNeil, Jr., in 1998, the McNeil Center facilitates scholarly inquiry into the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850, with a particular but by no means exclusive emphasis on the mid-Atlantic region.

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