Assistant Professor in Art History Emily Casey has received a short-term fellowship from the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia to conduct research for her book project, “Hydrographic Vision: Imagining the Sea and British America, 1750-1800.”
The Library Company, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, is the first successful lending library in the United States and the nation’s oldest cultural institution. Today, it is a research library with a special focus on historic books and cultural artifacts related to the transatlantic British empire and early United States. During the fellowship, Casey will make use of the Library’s collection of maps, navigational pilots, and geographic treatises published in both England and America in the eighteenth century. She hopes to take the fellowship at some point this summer.