About the Conference Co-Sponsors
The McNeil Center for Early American Studies facilitates interdisciplinary research on the histories and cultures of North America in the Atlantic world before 1850. Its programs include residential pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, a variety of regular seminars, and scholarly conferences such as this one. With the University of Pennsylvania Press, it publishes a major monograph series as well as Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
The plantation known as Stenton originated when Pennsylvania’s Colonial Secretary James Logan began assembling lands north of Philadelphia during the 1710s. The Logan family, along with their indentured and enslaved servants, moved into the completed brick mansion in 1730. Since 1899, this nearly unchanged colonial house has operated as a historic site and house museum, administered by The National Society of The Colonial Dames of America in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It offers an unparalleled spatial and material experience of an eighteenth-century plantation house.
The Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in Early American Economy and Society (PEAES) promotes research and publication on the origins and development of the early American economy. Its fellowships, seminars, conferences, monograph series with Johns Hopkins University Press, special issues of journals, and other activities bring together scholars who work in a wide range of themes such as business cultures, commerce, manufacturing, labor, political economy, households, gender, technology, and more.
Cliveden is a Georgian country house, built 1763-1767 as a summer home for the Chew family of Philadelphia. Benjamin Chew (1722-1810) owned several plantations in Maryland and Delaware, and he invested in land, shipping, and iron manufacturing. The property was at the center of the 1777 Battle of Germantown during the Revolution, and it was inhabited by seven generations of Chews and those enslaved and in service to them. Cliveden is a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and a member of the Historic Germantown consortium.
The Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design offers an integrated course of study through which designers, historians, conservators, and other professionals learn to interpret, sustain, and transform the built environment. Through coursework, studios, and laboratories at Penn, students have unparalleled opportunities for learning, internships, and sponsored research. Graduates are prepared for careers focused on the design and preservation of the world's cultural heritage.