Acknowledgments

Revolution at Penn? is organized by the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts and features the collections of the University of Pennsylvania Archives and the Kislak Center. The exhibition was designed and installed by Brittany Merriam, and we would particularly like to acknowledge her many contributions to this project.

Conservation, object preparation, and digitization are vital to this and every exhibition. We thank Leslie Goldman, Senior Conservation Tech for Exhibits, and her colleagues in the Steven Miller Conservation Laboratory: Sibylla Shekerdjiska-Benatova, Tessa Gadomski, Valeria Kremser, Jess Ortegon, and Sarah Reidell, Margy E. Meyerson Head of Conservation. Thanks to Ren Griffin for exhibition support. Digital services were provided by our colleagues in the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI), particularly Chris Lippa, Jordan Rothschild, Adam Schachner, and Mick Overgard. Thanks to them, most of the original materials in this exhibition are available on the Libraries’ digital platform, Colenda. Ben Liebersohn of Research Data and Digital Services assisted with the digital mapping of revolutionary Philadelphia.

For planning, organization, logistics, and communication we are grateful to Sean Quimby, Associate VP and Director of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts; Eri Mizukane, Assistant Director of Operations, Kislak Center; Sal Caputo, Director of Facilities Management; and Andy Hart, MacDonald Director of Preservation; Mary Ellen Burd, Director of Strategic Communications, and Monica Fonorow, Communications Coordinator.

Preston Link designed and fabricated the Coffee House installation. For assistance with design and printing projects related to the coffeehouse, our thanks to the Common Press: Jessica Peterson, Manager, and Erica Honson, Studio Coordinator. For their work on creating pedagogical and display materials, thanks to staff at the Education Commons: Tex Kang, Program Coordinator of Technology and Play, and Christine Kemp, Program Coordinator of Technology and Play.

We would like to thank Matthew Hunter, Head of Digital Scholarship, for his asstance and great patience in setting up the Manifold application to present the exhibit catalog on-line.

We received research assistance from many sources. The suggestions of our current colleagues have been vital: John Bence, Mitch Fraas, Amey Hutchins, Holly Mengel, and Alicia Meyer. Special thanks to Lynne Farrington for both research and editorial assistance. Current and former Penn students who contributed include Sylvia Erdely, Kaitlynn Gilmore, Sophie Mwaisela, and Isaiah Weir. Student researchers in the Penn and Slavery Project have also inspired us: multiple classes of Penn undergraduate students have been led by Professor Kathleen Brown and assisted by VanJessica Gladney. Our work would also not have been possible without the work of those librarians and archivists who were here before us, particularly Mark Frazier Lloyd, University Archivist Emeritus, the late F.J. Dallett, and the late Thomas R. Adams.

This project is one in a series of projects leading to 2026, under the heading The Revolutionary City. Many thanks to colleagues at our partner organizations for their support: the McNeil Center for Early American Studies; the American Philosophical Society Library & Museum; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Library Company of Philadelphia; and the Museum of the American Revolution.

John Pollack & J. M. Duffin, Exhibition curators