January 1, 2013 marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In commemoration, a number of institutions throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region briefly displayed copies of the hallowed document before whisking them necessarily back to climate controlled safety.
However, if you missed earlier events or want to learn more about Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the promises it held there are still a number of exhibitions, lectures and programs available in the region:
The Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience will hold its 33rd Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series (PDF), Emancipation and the Work of Freedom on Saturday, February 16, 2013, from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm in the Paul Robeson Campus Center on the Newark Campus.
This year’s speakers are:
Thavolia Glymph, Duke University, Emancipation and Enslaved Women on the Civil War’s Battlefields
Steven Hahn, University of Pennsylvania, What did the Slaves Think of Lincoln?
Tera Hunter, Princeton University, “Bound as Fast in Wedlock As A Slave Can Be” African American Marriage, Slavery, and Freedom
James Oakes, City University of New York, “Self Emancipation”
The State Museum of Pennsylvania will host a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln in its exhibit Emancipation: Lincoln and His Proclamation through February 3, 2013. The document is on loan from the Union League of Philadelphia.
Mid-Atlantic People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: On Questions, Doubts, and the Problems of Full Citizenship will be held on January 24-26, 2013 at University of Pennsylvania Law School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The U.S. National Archives welcomes Pulitzer prize–winning author Annette Gordon Reed who will lead a panel discussion of “The Destruction of Slavery” on January 24, 2013, and on January 30 a panel of scholars discusses “A Declaration of Freedom: Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation and its Legacy of Liberty.”
The New-York Historical Society commemorates the sesquicentennial of the Emancipation Proclamation with a display of rare documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, including an important 1864 printing of the Emancipation Proclamation and a congressional copy of the Thirteenth Amendment resolution, both bearing the signature of Abraham Lincoln. Related Programs:
Lincoln and Emancipation? January 17, 6:30 pm
Screening and Discussion of Lincoln with Tony Kushner and Harold Holzer? January 29, 6:30 pm
Lincoln, Douglass and the U.S. Colored Troops in Action ?February 19. 6:30 pm
New York Public Library Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture exhibit Visualizing Emancipation runs through March 16. “To commemorate the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Schomburg presents 171 pre– and post– Civil War era photographs of enslaved and free black women, men, and children. The images record the presence of black soldiers and black workers in the American South and help the 21st century viewer reimagine a landscape of black people’s desire to be active in their own emancipation.”
Long Island University has scheduled a number of Emancipation Proclamation and Abraham Lincoln themed exhibits and lectures throughout the spring, kicking off with Howard Holzer’s lecture “Emancipating Lincoln: The Proclamation Text, Context, and Memory on March 21 2013.
The American History Museum of the Smithsonian has organized the exhibit Changing America: The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 and the March on Washington, 1963 which will run through September 15, 2013.
Visit the Library of Congress Emancipation Proclamation web guide for a wealth of primary documents related to the Proclamation, its reception and repercussions.