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Telling Western Pennsylvania History Through Slavery and Abolition

November 6 @ 6:00 pm 7:30 pm EST

$5 – $10 ADVANCE TICKETS REQUIRED
Telling Western Pennsylvania History Through Slavery and Abolition

Western PA has been a crossroads for traveling humans for over 19,000 years. During the 17th and 18th centuries, traveling south to north through Western PA took on an extra layer of meaning. For people fleeing enslavement, Western PA was a place where they had to dodge bounty hunters, find allies, and connect to a final route out of the country and away from the jurisdiction of fugitive slave laws.

Uniquely in Western PA, some who were making their escape up the Atlantic Coast, along with those who turned inland at Philadelphia, might meet those who were making their escape up the Ohio River Valley or via Cumberland MD. Towns in Western PA were meeting places and switching yards where these escapees from multiple points of origin could find each other and work together to set up their next steps towards freedom.

Exploring this distinctive place in history of freedom-seeking, abolitionist activism, and civil disobedience can show us the long arc of our history here in Western PA as a place that welcomed strangers and offered help to people in their time of trial.

SPEAKER: David H. Lehman is an assistant professor in the history department at Westminster College (Pa.) since 2023. He has a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BA from Goshen College (Ind.). Lehman’s teaching interests include early U.S. history, American Indian history and culture, environmental studies, modern empires, race in U.S. history, world geography, modern China, and public history.

    DATE/TIME: November 6, 2024 / 6:00-7:00 pm

    LOCATION: LCHS ANNEX – 408 N Jefferson St, New Castle PA 16101

    TICKET PRICE
    $5 for Members
    $10 for Non-members

    3 WAYS TO PURCHASE YOUR TICKET

    • ONLINE 24/7 at https://www.lawrencechs.com/store/tickets/
      online purchase deadline is November 3
    • By TELEPHONE: at 724-658-4022 any Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday from 11am to 4pm
    • IN PERSON At the LCHS Annex, 408 N Jefferson Street, New Castle only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between 11 AM and 4 PM

    Photo Attribution:
    Niagara, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

    408 North Jefferson Street
    New Castle, PA 16101 United States
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    724-658-4022
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