Hours of Operation

APS Administrative Offices are generally open Monday–Friday.

The Library Reading Room is open by appointment only, 9:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Monday–Friday. All visitors to the Library Reading Room must make an appointment through [email protected]. Please call us at 215-440-3400 with any questions. 

The APS Museum in Philosophical Hall is open April through December on Thursday–Sunday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Any changes to operating hours will be posted on the museum page. 

APS Addresses

Philosophical Hall
Administrative Offices and Museum
104 South Fifth Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Library Hall
105 South Fifth Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Benjamin Franklin Hall
Auditorium
427 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Richardson Hall
Museum Offices
431 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106 
 

Getting to the APS by car

From the south: Taking I-95 north, follow signs for “Central Phila./I-676.” From I-676, exit south onto Sixth Street and follow signs to the Independence National Historic Park (INHP) area. The APS is located in INHP near the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets.

From the west: Exit from the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) at interchange 24 (the Schuylkill Expressway, I-76). Take the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76) to the exit for I-676 “Central Philadelphia.” Take I-676 to the Eighth Street exit and follow the signs for Independence Hall and the INHP area. The APS is located in INHP near the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets.

From the north or east: Take the N.J. Turnpike to exit 4, Route 73. Take Route 73 north to Route 38. Take Route 38 west to US 30. Follow US 30 west over the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, and at the base of the bridge follow the signs for Sixth Street. Take Sixth Street south and follow signs to the INHP area. The APS is located in INHP near the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets.

Parking: There are several parking garages within a convenient distance from the APS. The Bourse Garage is the closest facility, at 4th and Ranstead Streets. Additionally, there are garages at the Independence Visitor Center and the National Constitution Center.

Getting to the APS by train

Philadelphia has an Amtrak station and is on the busy Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, D.C. Both Northeast Regional and Acela trains stop at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. In addition, the Keystone, an east-west Amtrak route, stops several times a day in Philadelphia.

Getting to the APS by bus

Many bus companies in the Northeast serve the Philadelphia area including Bolt Bus, Mega Bus, and Greyhound. Bolt Bus and Mega Bus arrive at 30th Street Station, which is a short ride away from the APS. The Greyhound station is between 12th and 13th Streets, just behind the Jefferson Station SEPTA stop.

Getting to the APS by public transit

SEPTA offers “regional rail” lines that connect the city and many of its Pennsylvania suburbs, and PATCO and NJ Transit offer similar services for many of the New Jersey suburbs. SEPTA also operates subways/elevated trains and trolleys throughout the city. The most convenient subway line to the APS is the Market-Frankford Blue Line, which connects 30th Street Station to Fifth and Market Street, one block north of the APS.

Getting to the APS by plane

The Philadelphia International Airport is 12 miles from the American Philosophical Society and is served by most major domestic and many international airlines. Philadelphia is a regional hub for American Airlines.

Ground Transportation from airport

The airport is connected to Philadelphia through a network of public transit, rental cars, taxis, and private car services. In addition, rideshare services can be booked for transport to and from the airport. More information on specific modes of transport can be found on the airport’s website.

The Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History was presented to Catherine Gallagher at the 2018 November Meeting of the American Philosophical Society in recognition of her book Telling It Like It Wasn't: The Counterfactual Imagination in History and Fiction.

Telling It Like It Wasn’t is a subtle and closely argued study of instances of counterfactual history in Europe and America, beginning with the moment, represented by the work of Leibniz, when imagining alternative pasts ceased to be a rhetorical exercise and became a way of thinking about the complexities of causality and real-time possibility. Professor Gallagher is fully aware of the paradoxical nature of her project – a history of an actual interest in unrealized history – and is not concerned to refute ‘reasonable’ criticisms of the counterfactual mode, only to show that its ‘long-term development and motivations might give us insight into our ways of making history meaningful’. This note is repeatedly and eloquently struck in the course of her book. ‘Historical entities’ are seen as ‘not only solid and substantial but also suspenseful and unsettled’. ‘Examining previous historical options’ may be ‘a way to escape cycles of repetition’. The connections among ‘science fiction, alternate history, and historical activism seem enduring not because they solve problems but because they destabilize solutions’. At one point history itself, at least in its political uses, becomes the ‘preservation of alternatives’, and ‘counterfactuality, far from being opposed to actual history, seems rather a crucial mode of imagining its vitality, consequences, and ongoing significance; it becomes actual history’s champion’.

From Leibniz’s positing ‘the actual as a subset (rather than the obverse) of the possible’ to the American ‘actualizing the future of an alternate past’ and the ‘peculiarly intense, complicated, multidimensional, and politically freighted’ fictions of postwar Britain, we see again and again how what ‘never happened’ can feel ‘very real’ – sometimes more real than what did happen. The result is not a case for confusing the real and the imaginary, or refusing to see the difference between them. It is a case for not occupying, as we so often do, an over-confident standpoint from which we can see neither clearly.

The Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History is awarded annually to the author whose book exhibits distinguished work in American or European cultural history. Established by a former student of Jacques Barzun, the prize honors this historian and cultural critic who was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1984.

The selection committee consisted of Michael Wood (Chair), Charles Barnwell Straut Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Princeton University; David Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; and Robert B. Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Committee on Social Thought, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago.

June 7-8, 2018

Conference papers can be found below.  You will be required to enter a password provided by conference organizers to access them. Please contact the APS at [email protected] if you are attending the conference but have not yet received the password.

Papers are not to be cited or circulated without the written permission of the author.

Panel 1: Knowledge Networks

"Mr. Jefferson, Hispanophile: Thomas Jefferson and Spanish Imperial Geography"
Matthew Franco, College of William and Mary

"Lost in Translation: David Bailie Warden and the Limits to Franco-Jeffersonian Cultural Exchange"
Joseph Eaton, National Chengchi University

"Enlightened Networks: Thomas Jefferson's System for Working from Home"
Diane Ehrenpreis and Endrina Tay, Monticello

Comment: Barbara Oberg, Princeton University

Panel 2: Institutions of Knowledge

"A Useful Cabinet: Collecting and Circulating Objects at the American Philosophical Society"
Reed Gochberg, Harvard University

"The American Philosophical Society, 1743-1746: From Founding to Failure"
Paul Sivitz, Idaho State University

"Every Child a Philosopher: The Science of Education and the Teaching of Arithmetic in the Early Republic"
Timothy Minella, Villanova University

Comment: Babak Ashrafi, Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine

Panel 3: Science and Religion in Jefferson’s America

Sponsored by the  Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

“Enlightened Judaism: Transatlantic Intellectualism & Polite Sociability in Eighteenth-Century Pennsylvania"
Jonathon Awtrey, Louisiana State University

"Vis Medicatrix: Medical Vitalism and Religious Infidelity in the Age of Jefferson”
Kirsten Fischer, University of Minnesota

"On the Margins: Christian Rabbinic Scholarship in 18th-Century America”
Arthur Kiron, University of Pennsylvania

Comment by: Kyle Roberts, Loyola University Chicago

Panel 4: Useful Knowledge

"Thomas Jefferson, Military Technology, and the State"
Andrew Fagal, Princeton University

"Design by 'considerable degree': Jefferson's Architecture as Applied Science"
Danielle Willkens, Auburn University

"Thomas Jefferson, Inoculation, and the Norfolk Riots"
Andrew Wehrman, Central Michigan University

Comment: J. Jefferson Looney, Daniel P. Jordan Editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello

Panel 5: Negotiating Knowledge

"André Michaux, Thomas Jefferson, and the 'Injunction of Science'"
Elizabeth Hyde, Kean University

"Containing the Flow of Animal Magnetism: Franklin, Jefferson, and the Mesmer Report"
Philipp Ziesche, Yale University

"Thomas Jefferson's Audiences: Charles Thomson and the Transformation of Notes on the State of Virginia"
Cara Rogers, Rice University

Comment: Richard Shiffrin, Indiana University

2018 Spring General Meeting
Laurence H. Tribe

The recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s 2018 Henry Allen Moe Prize in the Humanities is Laurence H. Tribe in recognition of his paper “Reflections on the ‘Natural Born Citizen’ Clause as Illuminated by the Cruz Candidacy” presented at the Society’s 2016 April Meeting and printed in the June 2017 Proceedings.  Laurence Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School.  

Laurence Tribe’s compelling argument confronts the fact that the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether being a citizen at birth by grace of federal statutes is sufficient to establish “natural born” citizenship. While considering the problems raised by Senator Ted Cruz’s birth status and his qualification (or not) to hold the presidency, Tribe unpacks the considerable intricacies of the technical interpretation of the “Natural Born Citizen” Clause in Article II of the Constitution, as well as the broader problem of what its provisions might be reasonably construed to suggest. It is not only Cruz’s own originalist methodology that would stand in the way of his candidacy; even for those who reject originalism, the difference between “natural born” and “naturalized” cannot be ignored. The paper not only faces matters of immediate political urgency that could lead to a constitutional crisis, but also ones of long-term importance to the whole citizen body that reflect on the values that we place on all citizens, “naturalized” or not. These arguments have immense significance for our future as a nation of immigrants. The questions raised are sometimes ones of rebarbative complexity, yet they are always set out with precision and clarity. Laurence Tribe’s essay is remarkable for its clarity, its scholarship, its quietly subversive humor, its learned and respectful critique of “originalists,” and its articulation of the significance of the clause against a backdrop of the nation’s continuing aspiration for greater equality of its citizens. It demonstrates in an understated yet eloquent way that jurisprudence has a place among the humanities.

The prize was established in 1982 by a gift from the widow of Henry Allen Moe, to honor the longtime head of the Guggenheim Foundation and president of the American Philosophical Society from 1959 to 1970. It pays particular tribute to his firm commitment to the humanities and those who pursue them.  The prize is awarded annually to the author of a paper in the humanities or jurisprudence read at a meeting of the Society.  

Members of the selection committee were Elizabeth Cropper (chair), Dean, Center for Advanced Study in the  Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art; Michael McCormick, Goelet Professor of Medieval History, Harvard University; Brent Shaw, Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics, Princeton University.

Spring General Meeting

Angela Creager

The recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s 2018 Patrick Suppes Prize in the History of Science is Angela Creager for her book Life Atomic: A History of Radioisotopes in Science and Medicine.  The book is an original and masterful contribution to the growing scholarship on how sciences are shaped by the development and deployment of new instruments. Breathtaking in scope, the book shows how--in the second half of the twentieth century--radioisotopes came to suffuse and transform research in fields ranging from the experimental life sciences (biochemistry and molecular biology) to the observational aspects of ecology and to both the diagnostic and the therapeutic aspects of bio-medicine.
    
Creager also demonstrates that since radioisotopes were overwhelmingly produced in the laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission, the radioisotope revolution was to a large extent a product of the Cold War and of the varying political agenda of the Commission.  Creager evenhandedly illuminates how radioisotopes thus served, at one and the same time, as sword, that is to develop the nation’s nuclear arsenal and as plowshare, that is, to expand its ability to make new scientific and clinical discoveries.

The book is strikingly authoritative, drawing on a rich array of sources, among them the records of federal agencies and academic institutions, private correspondence, and published scientific papers.  In all, Life Atomic is a landmark of historical scholarship.

Angela Creager is the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science and Director of the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University.  

The Patrick Suppes Prize honors accomplishments in three deeply significant scholarly fields, with the prize rotating each year between philosophy of science, psychology or neuroscience, and history of science. The history of science prize is awarded for an outstanding book in history of science appearing within the preceding six years.  The works considered for the prize are restricted to works that emphasize detailed analysis of important systematic findings in any branch of science, ancient or modern, using quantitative and mathematical methods.

The selection committee was Ruth Schwartz Cowan (chair), Janice and Julian Bers Professor Emerita, History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania; Babak Ashrafi, President, Chief Executive Officer, Consortium for History of Science, Technology and Medicine; Daniel J. Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University; Alexander Nehamas, Edmund N. Carpenter II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, Princeton University; Noel M. Swerdlow, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics and of History, University of Chicago; Visiting Professor, California Institute of Technology; and the committee was put together by Richard Shiffrin, Distinguished Professor, Luther Dana Waterman Professor, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University.

The American Philosophical Society is seeking applicants for a paid Cataloguing Department internship.

Founded in 1743, The American Philosophical Society’s library, located near Independence Hall in Philadelphia, is a leading international center for research in the History of American science and technology and its European roots, as well as early American history and culture. The Library houses over 13 million manuscript leaves, 275,000 volumes and bound periodicals, thousands of prints and maps, and large audio, video, and digital holdings. Outstanding historical collections and subject areas include the papers of Benjamin Franklin (14,000 letters and documents); Jefferson’s holograph of the Declaration of Independence; western scientific expeditions and travel including the original journals of Lewis and Clark; polar exploration; history of physics and 20^th-century medical research.

Cataloguing Department: Staff consists of the Head of Cataloguing and Assistant Head of Cataloguing, who report to the Curator of Printed Materials. Together they are responsible for the acquisition, cataloguing, and organization of all library printed materials.>

Internship: The successful candidate will report to the Assistant Head of Cataloguing and gain practical experience in a professional library setting through experience in creating catalogue records for rare books and pamphlets, maps, broadsides and graphics. The intern will be expected to write a blog about the internship, and to give an informal talk to library staff.

Stipend: $2,580 ($15 per hour for 172 hours) during fall semester (September through December).

Experience: Applicants currently should be enrolled in or graduated from a graduate-level library science program; and preference will be given to candidates who have strong organizational skills and a keen interest in learning cataloguing practices.

Deadline: Applications will be accepted through June 8.

The American Philosophical Society is an EOE. Successful applicants will be asked to show proof that they legally can work in the United States.

To apply upload CV or resume, a cover letter explaining qualifications for and interest in the position and three references (not letters of reference, please) to http://apply.interfolio.com/50173

Please direct any questions to Marian Christ, Assistant Librarian and Head Cataloguer, via email: [email protected].

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                     

Contact: Jessica Frankenfield
Phone: 215-701-4427
Email: [email protected]

Museum Exhibition In Franklin’s Footsteps: 275 Years at the American Philosophical Society Opens April 13, 2018

Philadelphia [April 13, 2018]—They calculated the size of the solar system, explored distant lands, shed light on the origins of life, unearthed ancient fossils, invented computer technologies, cured diseases, and walked on the moon. What did these accomplished people have in common? They were Members of the American Philosophical Society. Opening April 13, 2018, the new exhibition at the APS Museum, In Franklin’s Footsteps: 275 Years at the American Philosophical Society, tells the story of the nation’s oldest learned society and how its Members have changed the world.

When Benjamin Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society in 1743, he recognized the need for an organization that would bring together the brightest thinkers of the day to share their scientific experiments, from the esoteric to the deeply practical. He named the Society for the then-common term for the study of science—“natural philosophy.”

In Franklin’s Footsteps shows how APS Members have continued Franklin’s Enlightenment mission since 1743. The exhibition reveals their work through three themes inspired by Franklin’s original charge for Members to pursue “all philosophical Experiments that let Light into the Nature of Things, tend to increase the Power of Man over Matter, and multiply the Conveniencies or Pleasures of Life.”

Highlights in the exhibition include Benjamin Franklin’s library chair, an original journal from the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Charles Darwin’s handwritten title page of On the Origin of Species, and Neil Armstrong’s annotated and signed copy of the moon landing transcript. The exhibition draws out stories of collaboration and debate on divisive topics, many of which have occurred at the Society’s biannual Meetings of Members and in APS publications. A section on nuclear energy covers APS Members’ contributions to atomic research, including materials from Enrico Fermi, E. U. Condon, and Henry DeWolf Smyth. These scientific breakthroughs prompted APS Members to hold a symposium on the ethics of nuclear weapons at a 1945 Meeting, which featured remarks from J. Robert Oppenheimer and resulted in a letter to President Truman advocating for freedom of academic research on atomic energy.

The exhibition also includes items from one of the APS Library’s most frequently requested material—the eugenics collection. Members like Charles Davenport and Alexander Graham Bell advocated for the eradication of “unfit human traits,” while critics of the movement like anthropologist Franz Boas dedicated their work to celebrating and better understanding the diversity of human culture. APS Members today continue to discuss challenging topics with recent Meeting symposiums on climate change, the nature of democracy, and the future of higher education.

Special labels written by current APS Members show the enduring significance of objects selected for the exhibition. Climate scientist Warren M. Washington highlighted the importance of explorer Elisha Kent Kane’s meteorological data collected in Greenland from 1853 to 1855. This type of historical record allows scientists like Washington to track long-term climate trends. Anthropologist and paleobiologist Nina Jablonski’s label accompanies the handwritten title page to Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Jablonski noted that Darwin only mentioned humans once in the book, but he provided the theoretical framework for understanding human evolution.

The exhibition opening also will unveil the product of a Super Bowl bet with the Boston-based American Academy of Arts and Sciences (i.e. Patriots fans.) The Eagles beat the Patriots and the APS received from AAAS a loaned set of Benjamin Franklin’s manuscript writings on his electricity experiments.

APS Museum Director Merrill Mason said, “I hope visitors will be surprised with the variety of historical objects and topics represented in this exhibition—everything from Franklin to the moon—and that they will come away with some memorable stories about our Members.” 

Since the exhibition can only hold a small fraction of the Society’s 13 million treasures, visitors will be able to explore the collections more deeply via a touch-screen kiosk. This interactive display will allow visitors to learn more about objects from the APS Museum and Library in the areas of Early American History, History of Science, Natural History, and Native American History, plus fun finds in the Surprise Me! and Staff Favorites categories.

Over the course of the exhibition, a sculpture of the extinct giant ground sloth Megalonyx jeffersonii will be installed piece by piece in the Thomas Jefferson Garden (across the street from Philosophical Hall). In 1797, Jefferson presented a paper on this then-unidentified fossil to his fellow Members of the Society, detailing his theory that the creature may still be alive and, judging by the size of its claws, must be from a ferocious animal like a lion or tiger. Jefferson was correct that this creature was massive, but it turned out to be an herbivorous gentle giant.

The opening reception will be held on Friday, April 13 at 5:30 p.m. in the Society’s Philosophical Hall. APS President Linda Greenhouse will deliver opening remarks and guests will be able to tour the exhibition. The opening date was selected to coincide with Thomas Jefferson’s 275th birthday.

Special events will complement the themes of the exhibition, including a series of lectures entitled “Useful Knowledge 101” that will cover unexpected yet practical topics on everything from the ecology of Philadelphia to the history of beer. There will be family-friendly programs throughout the summer on the second Saturday of each month, and the Annual Garden Party in October.

The exhibition will be open Thursday–Sunday through December 30, 2018 in Philosophical Hall, 104 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia. Admission is free, but donations are encouraged. Groups can schedule tours by contacting [email protected].

About the APS Museum

Founded in 2001, the APS Museum is located adjacent to Independence Hall in Philadelphia’s historic district. It develops thematic exhibitions from the Society’s collections of over 13 million manuscripts, rare books, artworks, scientific instruments, Native American materials, and other historical objects. Programs expand upon the themes and objects in the exhibitions and relate them to relevant issues today. 

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