In December 1763, following years of gruesome frontier warfare, armed settlers in the Paxton Township exacted revenge on an isolated, unarmed Indian settlement, attacked the Lancaster jailhouse where refugees had taken shelter, and vowed to march all the way to Philadelphia. While these “Paxton Boys” were stopped in Germantown by a delegation led by Benjamin Franklin, their critics and apologists spent the next year battling tooth and nail in print.

Co-sponsored with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, this event on Friday, April 21, will introduce the Digital Paxton Project (digitalpaxton.org), a digital archive and critical edition of the pamphlet war created by Library Company Fellow Will Fenton, Doctoral Candidate at Fordham University. Alongside Fenton’s presentation of the Digital Paxton Project, Scott Paul Gordon, Professor of English at Lehigh University will share his latest Paxton research, “Hidden in Plain Sight: The Paxton Crisis and Moravian Archives.”

A reception will follow the presentations. 

Papers for this session will not be pre-circulated.

When: Friday, April 21, 2017 | 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Where: The Library Company of Philadelphia, 1314 Locust Street

Registration is requested for this event. To register, click here.

Come see the pop-up exhibition: A New Looking-Glass for the 1764 Pamphlet War
Wednesday, April 5 - Friday, May 5 at the Library Company of Philadelphia 

The exhibition showcases more than two-dozen exemplary manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets, and political cartoons from the Library Company, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, American Philosophical Society, and Haverford College Quaker and Special Collections.

Access the digital companion today (digitalpaxton.org/exhibition).