Edward Duffield: Philadelphia Clockmaker, Citizen, Gentleman, 1730-1803

Horologist and American Antiquarian Society member Bob Frishman takes us on a journey through the fascinating life of clockmaker, wealthy property owner, and civic and Anglican leader Edward Duffield (1730-1803).  Duffield made, repaired, and sold elegant floor-standing clocks, surveying instruments, and sundials that today are in museums and private collections.  He was a life-long friend of Benjamin Franklin, serving as an executor to the great man’s will, and the two men’s families were closely connected and often exchanged extensive visits.

Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip

Alex Beringer delves into the surprising history of comic strips in America before the rise of the Sunday Funnies.  It’s a story that not only involves little-known artists and editors like Frank Bellew and T.W. Strong, but also some well-known names in nineteenth-century U.S. literature and culture like Walt Whitman and Mark Twain.  Based on his new book, Lost Literacies: Experiments in the Nineteenth-Century US Comic Strip , Beringer reveals the variety and ambition of nineteenth-century American comic strips.

The Art of Science and Technology, 1750-1900

The Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) encourages and facilitates the use and understanding of popular images by scholars in a variety of disciplines including American studies, history, art and architectural history, English, gender studies, literature, religion, theatre, and environmental studies. The 2014 Summer Seminar, The Art of Science and Technology, 1750-1900, will be held Sunday, July 13 through Thursday, July 17, at the American Antiquarian Society, 185 Salisbury Street, Worcester, MA.

Culinary Culture: The Politics of American Foodways, 1765-1900

The linking of food to politics became increasingly popular from the mid-eighteenth century on as a means to communicate caution or approval of political structures and ideologies in America. Whether the colonies were referred to as a cake or a kettle of fish, the domestic language of food was easily understood and often appeared in print and visual culture. This seminar examines how and why a culinary vocabulary and food imagery developed and was employed as a widespread (though little studied) method of political/cultural/visual expression.

In Black and White: Race and American Visual Culture

The 2017 CHAViC Summer Seminar will explore how American visual culture expressed ideas about race, specifically blackness and whiteness, across the long nineteenth century. Through lectures, readings, hands-on workshops, and group research, participants will learn how popular forms of visual culture have constructed racial identities in the United States and how looking can function as a racialized practice.

On Stage: Spectacle in Nineteenth-Century America

“All the world’s a stage,” wrote William Shakespeare, and so it seemed across the cultural landscape of the nineteenth-century United States. The 2022 Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) seminar will focus on visual and material cultures of theater and related histories of spectacle and spectatorship. Interdisciplinary in subject and scope, the seminar welcomes emerging and senior scholars across multiple fields.