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Penn prepares to mark America’s 250th birthday
A brick building with white windows is seen against a blue sky. An American flag flies to the left, and a clock sits in the cupola at the center.

Penn is planning two years of events around the Semiquincentennial theme, which marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall.

(Image: iStock/Pgiam)

Penn prepares to mark America’s 250th birthday

Next year, the nation will celebrate the Semiquincentennial marking the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In the lead up to celebrations, Penn faculty, staff, and students will have a role to play.
Senior thesis explores Bayard Rustin’s civil rights vision
A man stands in a stairwell leaning on the banister.

Connor Nakamura’s senior thesis traces Bayard Rustin’s life from 1955 to 1965, including his focus on creating economic opportunity.

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Senior thesis explores Bayard Rustin’s civil rights vision

Fourth-year Connor Nakamura’s research delves into Rustin’s life, work, and legacy as a thinker and leader.
The monstrous and mythical
An ancient bronze bust of a centaur.

'Man and Centaur,' bronze, circa 750 BC.

(Image: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The monstrous and mythical

In his book “Centaurs and Snake-Kings: Hybrids and the Greek Imagination,” Jeremy McInerney, professor of classical studies in the School of Arts & Sciences, investigates the power of hybridity in myth.

Blake Cole

How British settlers used children as tools of settlement in the British Atlantic
An advertisement for a runaway enslaved child from the 1700s.

Image: Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers; Library of Congress

How British settlers used children as tools of settlement in the British Atlantic

Erica Duncan’s research at Penn’s McNeil Center for Early American Studies focuses on how children became essential to shaping ideas of freedom within the Black Atlantic.

From The McNeil Center for Early American Studies

The law in the 19th-century American South
A historic photo of someone cutting the grass of a plantation in the Antebellum South.

Image: Courtesy of Picryl

The law in the 19th-century American South

Madison Ogletree, a McNeil Center for Early American Studies Consortium Dissertation Fellow, explains her deep dive into law and the everyday lives of free African Americans in rural areas of the slave South.

From The McNeil Center for Early American Studies

Jessica Varner on the long arc of built environment and its materials
Jessica Varner.

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Jessica Varner on the long arc of built environment and its materials

Varner, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at the Weitzman School, explores the intersections between architectural, environmental, and chemical history.

From the Weitzman School of Design

Sourcing early American archives of rebellion
Spines of historic books.

Image: iStock/Gorlov

Sourcing early American archives of rebellion

In her research, Marley Lix-Jones, an Advisory Council Dissertation Fellow at the McNeil Center, finds histories of rebellion and social connections within enslaved communities.

From The McNeil Center for Early American Studies

A seminar explores what history can be
Archival images of Indigenous students at a boarding school.

A photograph in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania shows students at a Native American boarding school.

(Image: Courtesy of Omnia)

A seminar explores what history can be

Hardeep Dhillon, an assistant professor of history in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, teaches a first-year seminar that explores the history of children in America while equipping students with foundational analytical skills.

From Omnia

Jimmy Carter remembered
In a black-and-white photo, Jimmy Carter stands close to the camera in front of a crowd. He is seen in profile and is smiling.

Then-Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter prepares to give a speech to a crowd estimated at 35,000 in downtown Philadelphia in October 1976.

(Image: AP Photo/File)

Jimmy Carter remembered

Penn faculty reflect on the legacy of the former president, who led America almost a half-century ago and whose post-presidency was defined by humanitarian work and service.

Kristen de Groot