"The Grid & the River" Book Talk with Art Historian & Author Elizabeth Milroy

Thursday, August 18, 2016 - 7:00pm to 8:30pm

Weavers Way is launching a new series of book discussions we're calling "Blue & Green," in partnership with Big Blue Marble Books in Mt. Airy.  All books in the series are 10% off for all Weavers Way Members!

"The Grid and the River: Philadelphia’s Green Places, 1682-1876," was recently published by Penn State University Press. Meet Author Elizabeth Milroy, an art historian at Drexel University's Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, who will be joining us to discuss this monumental work of urban history. The book tracks efforts to keep Philadelphia “green” from the time of its founding to the late 19th century, and according to David B. Brownlee, of UPenn, it is "...the best general history of the city in a generation.” 

Milroy chronicles how various conceptualizations of green space informed notions of community and identity in the city. She examines how and why areas along the Schuylkill River came to be developed, both in opposition to and in accordance with William Penn’s original city plan. Tapping a wealth of primary source materials, Milroy offers new insights into the city’s political and cultural development and documents how changing attitudes toward the natural environment have affected  Philadelphia’s landscape and the lives of the people who've lived here.

Elizabeth Milroy teaches courses in the history of Western art in the modern period, with a specialty in art and material culture in North America (the United States, Mexico and Canada) from the colonial period to the 20th century. She coedited the anthology Reading American Art, which is now a standard textbook in the field.  This is a FREE EVENT.  Refreshments will be served. Please register here!

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The Weavers Way Membership Dept.
Organizer Phone: 
215-843-2350 ext. 118
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