Wednesday, October 22, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Philadelphia History Museum
Join us at the Philadelphia History Museum for conversation with Jean R. Soderlund, author of the new book Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn, and a film screening by History Making Productions.
About the book:
Lenape Country is a sweeping narrative history of the multiethnic society of the Delaware Valley in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. After Swanendael, the Natives, Swedes, and Finns avoided war by focusing on trade and forging strategic alliances in such events as the Dutch conquest, the Mercurius affair, the Long Swede conspiracy, and English attempts to seize land. Drawing on a wide range of sources, author Jean R. Soderlund demonstrates that the hallmarks of Delaware Valley society—commitment to personal freedom, religious liberty, peaceful resolution of conflict, and opposition to hierarchical government—began in the Delaware Valley not with Quaker ideals or the leadership of William Penn but with the Lenape Indians, whose culture played a key role in shaping Delaware Valley society.
Jean R. Soderlund is Professor of History at Lehigh University and editor of William Penn and the Founding of Pennsylvania: A Documentary History. She is an associate editor of The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
About the film:
A Lost World, the sixth episode of the documentary series Philadelphia: The Great Experiment by History Making Productions tells the story of Philadelphia between 1600-1680.
The program is FREE to Museum Members. $10 General Public. Pre-registration is requested. Books will be available for purchase.
Register today!